In this sense, it is considered to have brought about the shift towards modern societies of a “complex character” and to have entailed a break with traditional ways of life (Koselleck 1993, cp. In fact, modernisation has been identified, simultaneously, as a typical-ideal construction, as a specific type of social structure, as an idea or ideology, as a vital experience, as an unrepeatable temporal specificity, as a historical epoch and as a socio-cultural or historical project. Western modernisation and the spatio-temporal characteristics of late-modernityįrom the beginning, the concept of modernity has been marked by a certain indecision (Martuccelli, 1999: 9), ambivalence, contradiction (Bauman and Tester 2002), complexity (Thiebaut, 1996: 312 ff), polysignification (Latour 2012: 27) and multivoicedness. These skyscrapers have been selected from specialized online pages Footnote 1 and from a large architectural literature and have been sought to be representative and significant of the set of buildings built in the city in the last years of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. In turn, these sections have been divided into a series of subsections dedicated, respectively, “western modernisation and the spatio-temporal characteristics of late modernity”, “To modernity and capitalism” and “modernity and the conception of time in Shanghai” and “skyscrapers, symbol of western and eastern capitalist modernity” (“the futurization of skyscrapers”) and “the skyscrapers of Shanghai, between tradition and modernity, between globalization and attachment to the local” (“the geographical space and time of the Shanghai skyscrapers” and the analysis of 5 skyscrapers). With these objectives in mind, we have divided this work into two sections, preceded by an introduction and finished by conclusions, (I) the modernizing drive of China and Shanghai and (II) the skyscrapers of the Pudong contemplate those of the Bund: nostalgia for the past that build the future. In this regard, four general objectives are pursued:ĭescribe how the city seeks modernization and in what concrete way it designs a modern temporal discourse.įind out what kind of temporal narrative expresses the concentration of its skyscrapers on the two banks of the Huangpu, the Bund and the Pudong.Īnalyze the most representative and significant skyscrapers built in the city, to reveal whether they opt for tradition or modernity, globalization or the local.Ĭompare Western and Shanghai modernisations. This article tries to find out to what extent the skyscrapers raised at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first in Shanghai follow the modern program promoted by the State and the city and how they play an essential role in the construction of the temporary discourse that this modernization entails. For this reason, the author defends that Shanghai, by defining globalization, by being among the most active cities in the construction of skyscrapers, by building more than New York and by building increasingly technologically advanced tall towers, has the possibility to devise a peculiar Chinese modernity, or even deconstruct or give a substantial boost to the general concept of Western modernity. The work concludes that the past, present and future of Shanghai have been minimized, that its history has been shortened, that it is a liminal site, as its most outstanding skyscrapers, built on the edge of the river and on the border between past and future. The work finds out what type of temporal narrative expresses the concentration of these skyscrapers on the two banks of the Huangpu, that of the Bund and that of the Pudong, and finally, it analyzes the seven most representative and significant skyscrapers built in the city in recent years, in order to reveal whether they opt for tradition or modernity, globalization or the local. In this sense, it describes how the city seeks modernization and in what concrete way it designs a modern temporal discourse. This article aims to find out to what extent the skyscrapers erected in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, in Shanghai, follow the modern program promoted by the State and the city and how they play an essential role in the construction of the temporary discourse that this modernization entails.
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