ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the role of the city and attributes of place in the synthesis of modernity in early 20th century China, or, in the parlance of Republican cultural politics, contemporary "National Essence". It focuses on the dialectical relation between city/locality and more comprehensive constructs of nationality and National Essence, and on the shift from a preservationist to an economistic mode of modernity. The city's guji also lead a double existence as both local and national artifacts. Foremost, guji were constituent elements of the Suzhou cityscape. Preservationist modernizers appropriated the ostensible ancient material and metaphysical verities of local guji as bulwarks of national culture. Public discourse on guji and National Essence in the city minimized the epistemological violence of modernism as largely foreign origined, which contemporary thinkers posed as the intransigent dilemma between being modem and Chinese, by quite literally grounding notions of modem Chinese nationality within the cityscape.
