ABSTRACT
China has been going through radical transformations for three decades by now, as a consequence of Deng Xiaoping’s reform beginning in 1978. A market economy has been established; large foreign capital has been attracted into the country; and massive exports have been flowing into the world. Rural and urban reforms have dismantled the Maoist planned economy, liberalized society and production, and triggered freedom and mobility for the population, as well as the ‘largest mass migration to the cities the world has ever seen’. 1 Some 12 to 19 million people have migrated to the cities each year since 1980, which has created by now some 530 million urban residents, 40 per cent of the national total, a trend that is expected to continue for some time. 2 Massive infrastructure and urban architectural projects, ranging from dams, bridges and highways to new towns, housing developments and civic buildings across the country for the past three decades, have changed the landscape fundamentally. It has created a new urban–rural habitat that is promising and inspiring on the one hand (for a new modern way of life with a higher standard of living on a larger scale), and threatening and destructive on the other (to historical fabrics and ecological balance, with national and global consequences). In the realm of architectural design, overseas architects have joined the process since the 1980s. In 2002, there has been a dramatic arrival of Western architects to design some of the largest pieces of civic architecture in China, many of which have been completed in Beijing in 2008.
