ABSTRACT
Although the history of modern China with wars and revolutions appears swift and chaotic, there were slow and stable progressions in nation building and modernization. China experienced foreign aggressions and partial colonization (from 1840), the decline and collapse of the Qing dynasty (1911), the rise of the Republic in 1912 that soon fragmented into northern and southern governments, a further fragmentation into areas ruled by local warlords and colonial authorities, a Northern Expedition in 1926 to unify China, a unification of central China under the Kuomintang or the Nationalist Party with its capital in Nanjing (1927–37), then Japan’s full-scale invasion and China’s resistance (1937–45), and a civil war between the communists and the nationalists (1945–9), before a People’s Republic was established on the mainland in 1949 (and the Kuomintang’s Republic on Taiwan). This was a torrential transition in which a large empire with a long tradition was shaken to the ground, with all the repercussions and radical changes that ensured. Yet against all odds, a new nation-state of China designed in modern ways emerged gradually. It appeared briefly in 1912, then in the Nanjing decade of the 1930s, and finally with greater stability after 1949. Industrialization, modern urban construction, the use of science and technology, the arrival of modern professionals, the development of a modern public society, all occurred with growing strength across these periods despite wars and interruptions. If we focus on the period before 1949, then the Nanjing decade (1927–37) is relatively speaking the most stable and constructive time, and deserves close observation. Focusing on this decade and extending further back, we witness two important currents of development: the emergence of modern city building and public space, and the arrival of Chinese architects for the first time in history.
