(Re)production of Shanghai's "Lilong" space : from historical and social conception to cultural and cognitive perception

Abstract

Urban conservation (or heritage conservation in the urban setting), by its nature, imposes irreversible and enduring impacts on the built environment and urban fabrics. While conservation of individual monuments of indisputable historic and cultural significance often ignites heated debates, protests and resistance movements, the episodic conservation efforts of everyday architectures and heritage assets woven in the urban setting are often overlooked. Evidently within the rapidly changing context of urban China, which is virtually a contested ground for the struggles of many marginalized social groups and the upholding of local values and lived experiences amid the globalization waves and economic development, the urban conservation practice has not been systematically evaluated, monitored nor reviewed from an integrated perspective. This fittingly calls for the utility of French philosopher Henri Lefebvre’s triadic “conceived – perceived – lived” spatial framework, which has been proven useful in discerning the spatial changes and power interplays embedded in the process and outcome of the production and re-production of space. As suggested in the title, the application of the Lefebvrian spatial framework in this research endeavor is manifold, in both spatial and temporal senses: First, to discern how the concerned space was historically produced; Then, to examine how the space has been re-produced (as in produced for the second time) in the conservation processes and outcomes; At the same time, to paradoxically explore whether and how the space has been reproduced (as in organically and biologically conceived, given birth and nurtured) to perpetuate for a sustainable future; Ultimately, to investigate how urban conservation efforts can possibly facilitate or impact on the preservation, integration and transformation of space from a physical construct to a mental construct in the urban restructuring processes across China today. To this end, two fundamentally different yet very telling case study sites of urban conservation in Shanghai, the forefront city of China, have been identified, namely, Xintiandi and Tianzifang. They represent the market-driven conservation approach and the community-initiated conservation approach respectively, and both have deep-rooted causal relationships with the economic and developmental boom and evolution of urban conservation practice in Shanghai, and China as a whole. Through a comparative analysis of the two case studies, this research endeavor examines, individually and collectively, what the driving forces and the evolving relationships of the key players are behind the conservation efforts, and whose interests have been represented in the conservation processes, whether the lived environments, routines and experiences have been identified, respected and conserved; thereby summarizing the salient issues facing urban conservation efforts in China today, and reflecting upon how urban conservation practice can contribute to the sustainability of urban development and redevelopment in Chinese cities and beyond.