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Socialism and Shopping: The Role of the Shopping Mall in the Formation of Public Space in Modern China
First and second supervisors
Abstract
Now challenging the westernised hegemony of global wealth in the United States and Europe, China’s rise as an economic superpower has and continues to be the subject of much hyperbole and discussion.
As the urban nuclei that spearhead its modernisation become increasingly globalized, perhaps the most prominent keystone of development is the shopping mall, which increasingly defines the public spaces of the city core.
The presence of the built form that more than any other embodies Western capitalism in this context problematizes and makes explicit the inherent tensions between China’s Communist state and its ascent within the free market. It is a scenario which brings modern China to a crossroads as it struggles inwardly and outwardly to come to terms with a national identity that can embrace these opposing strands of ideology.
Within the physical and psychogeographic territory of the shopping mall a unique opportunity exists to examine these interrelationships and how they will manifest themselves in built form both now and in the future.
Understanding the construction of identity, and the physical materialisation of this character in built form as a process defined by the fluid interaction of global and local influences, the aim of the research will be to theorise an alternative prototype of the shopping mall that is more relevant to China’s ongoing evolution and which can influence a meaningful re-evaluation of a much maligned, though enduring, building typology at a global level.
If architecture is to remain a relevant social art then surely a more holistic understanding of this important shopping phenomenon is a necessary and integral part of the process of adapting to globalizing forces. A study of Chinese malls offers an excellent case study, indeed microcosm, of what is happening in all our cities today.
Biography
Nicholas is a qualified, practicing architect. He holds a BA(Hons) Arch from Leeds Metropolitan University (RIBA part 1), Dip Arch (Distinction) from Oxford Brookes University (RIBA part 2) and a PGDip (Distinction) from Westminster University (RIBA part 3).
His work on the British Shopping mall, carried out at Oxford Brookes University, was awarded an RIBA presidents dissertation medal in 2000 and was subsequently published in the Journal of Architecture. He was the recipient of an RIBA research trust award in 2010 which has funded enquiries parallel to his PhD research, concerning the hybridization of the globalizing shopping mall typology.