4. The Architecture of Utopia: From Rem Koolhaas’ Scale Models to RMB City

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter 1
2. Table of Contents 7
3. Acknowledgements 9
4. Introduction Imagining Chinese Cities 11
5. 1. Speed and Spectacle in Chinese Cities 21
6. 2. Planned Demi-monde and its Aestheticisation in Singapore 27
7. 3. Coming of Age in RMB City 43
8. 4. The Architecture of Utopia: From Rem Koolhaas’ Scale Models to RMB City 61
9. 5. Imagining a Disappearing and Reappearing Chinese City 77
10. 6. Tuning Urban China 97
11. 7. The City’s (Dis)appearance in Propaganda 121
12. 8. Claiming the Past, Presenting the Present, Selling the Future: Imagining a New Beijing, Great Olympics 135
13. 9. Shanghai in Film and Literature: The Danger of Nostalgia 157
14. 10. Nostalgia, Place, and Making Peace with Modernity in East Asia 171
15. 11. Femme Fatales and Male Narcissists: Shanghai Spectacle Narrated, Packaged and Sold 191
16. 12. City Regeneration and Its Opposition 211
17. 13. Law, Embodiment, and the Case of ‘Harbourcide’ 227
18. Contributors 243
19. Index 247