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As a nineteenth-century commercial development, the alleyway house was a hybrid of the traditional Chinese courtyard house and the Western terraced one. Unique to Shanghai, the alleyway house was a space where the blurring of the boundaries of public and private life created a vibrant social community. In recent years however, the city’s rapid redevelopment has meant that the alleyway house is being destroyed, and this book seeks to understand it in terms of the lifestyle it engendered for those who called it home, whilst also looking to the future of the alleyway house. Based on groundwork research, this book examines the Shanghai alleyway house in light of the complex history of the city...
With the impending demise of modernist planning, the footprints and corpses of failed modernist visions are littered everywhere. A vacuum of implementable urban theories has occurred at the time when unprecedented expansion and restructuring of cities in rapidly developing economies are taking place. In this collection of essays, William S W Lim zeroes in on the peculiarities and dynamics of present Asian urban and architectural conditions in order to challenge and transcend the socio-ecological forms and political influences generated by the current system of global capitalism.Part I of this book consists of the main essay, which attempts to establish baselines for an effective formulation ...
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As Enlightenment notions of predictability, progress and the sense that humans could control and shape their environments informed European thought, catastrophes shook many towns to the core, challenging the new world view with dramatic impact. This book concentrates on a period marked by passage from a society of scarcity to one of expenditure and accumulation, from ranks and orders to greater social mobility, from traditional village life to new bourgeois and even individualistic urbanism. The volume employs a broad definition of catastrophe, as it examines how urban communities conceived, adapted to, and were transformed by catastrophes, both natural and human-made. Competing views of gen...
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This stunning Hong Kong travel pictorial captures the architecture, culture, people, and cuisine of one of the most dynamic cities. You can leave Hong Kong, but it will never leave you. The experience of encountering an unforgettable mix of influences, cultures, and flavors stays with visitors. It's a place of clashing contrasts, Hong Kong is famous as the place where East most dramatically meets West, but that's just the start of it. It is also where the future meets the past — just check out the way the sci-fi infrastructure rubs shoulders with ancient temples. It's also the capital of capitalism, yet is part of the world's last great socialist empires. I'ts also one of the younger places on earth, yet a piece of the world's oldest civilizations. It's a rational, financial town--but feng shui and ancient magic are never far away. While many books focus on aspects of Hong Kong, such as the view from the air or the glories of the islands, this book gives you the whole breathtaking package.
Kuala Lumpur, like many Southeast Asian cities, has changed very significantly in the last two or three decades – expanding its size, and 'modernising' and 'globalising' its built environment. For many people these changes represent 'progress' and 'development'. This book, however, focuses on the more marginalised residents of Kuala Lumpur. Among others, it considers street hawkers and vendors, refugees, the urban poor, religious minorities and a sexuality rights group, and explores how their everyday lives have been adversely affected by these recent changes. The book shows how urban renewal, the law and ethno-religious nationalism can work against these groups in wanting to live and work in the capital city of Malaysia.
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The autobiography of Mamoru Shinozaki, 'Syonan' tells of his life during the Japanese occupation of Singapore. Sent to the colony as a press attache for the Japanese Foreign Ministry, Shinozaki saved thousands of lives through his liberal issue of personal safety passes and the creation of safe havens.