ABSTRACT
Since the end of the 20th century, architecture has played a major role in redefining the image of competing cities on the global market. In this framework, the Chinese architectural scenario has dramatically changed: once the largest emerging market for Western architectural firms, China now features its own, and internationally acknowledged, architectural star system. This chapter articulates how this shift has been recorded by Western architectural media and scholarship during the last three decades to investigate China’s trajectory in the global architectural market and on the global stage. The chapter proposes an innovative and hybrid approach to this reception problem, mixing a “distant” (i.e., quantitative) and a “close” (qualitative) reading of sources. Based on both quantitative analysis of a large dataset of international architectural publications and qualitative study of monographic issues of architectural publications, exhibitions, and awards, this chapter examines how China transformed its position in the field of architecture and in the global market, highlighting China’s transformation from an importer and consumer of architectural trends established elsewhere into a producer. As China emerges as an assertive global power, architectural production—as national cultural expression—appears to follow the same trajectory in a quest for an architecture with “Chinese characteristics”.
