CHAPTER Architecture, Media, and Real Estate Speculation Te CSD we osig Er Guo tou qos ary The ce veri mom ong ident frie Sie cmon SOHO Ch 97, ar less than NewTown i two office skyscrapers, shops, al designed with ultramodern, minim Jianwai SOHO is one of th few building projects in Beijing to have eliminated bulky balconies. The propel e priced at the highest level at the time in B but they were sold out long before the projects were completed. Fi ing the success of SOHO NewTown and Jianwai SOHO, the company has continued to use design—mostly from prestigious internat chitects—to brand its projects. As of 2009, SOHO China has expandey real estat jon to the entire CBD with seven SOHO projects, ithas developed more commercial space in Beijing’s CBD than any ARCHITECTURE, MEDIA, AND REAL ESTATE SPECULATION, or cis the most pub- intensive and concept-driven development del. Every SOHO project is packaged as urban work and I ncept—of new styles of —to the growing Chinese middle class, Along with gin real estate, and dreams of Londoners, ive in their global cities. This chapter will frst take a historical detour ler ofeconomic act and Parisians examine how the cen: 1 older inner city to Iwill then examine the Js, writers, and we how the symbolic capital of architec- linked to the accumulation of economic, poli ler creative types: (ural design is ul 1ave produced a fragmented city of wi pockets of the dispossessed, glamour zones surrounded by From Peking to Beijing: A Genealogy of Downtowns ‘market reform in 1978 and transformed by institutional re- 1 economic center, of the city, Throughout mucl history, the political and economic centers Beijing have often been two separate spheres, In the imperial and so- periods, downtown Peking was the political center of the empire it was largely defined ae ccuarrer THREE ‘on the existing scholarship about the urban and soci this section will trace how downtown Peking has cor its location, function, and meaning from the imperi r and how the downtown(s) has/have been made or unmade by local and translocal processes throughout this history. Then I -mporary period and examine the efforts by the city government to use tional design firms to promote the new CBD. (ory of Peking, nuously changed Imperial Peking, 14008-1911 ‘Peking/Beijing is an ancient city that has served as the capital of five imperial dynasties and one modern regime.‘ Imperial Peking—during the Ming and Qing dynasties from 1403 to 1911—was the node of the government and administration networks of the Chinese Empire.’ The 1, and cultural resources commanded by Imperial fami we city, and their overflowed into many aspects Economie cen- ters were submerged under the shadow of the political center, the imperial domain. The dominance of political spheres over economic spheres left clear imprints on the cityscape. Ming and Qing Peking consisted of several walled cities nested in ‘concentric rings (fig, 3.1)” The Forbidden City, as the residence of th he geographic ce! local urban rial City surroundin, and workspace exclusively reserved for the ruling family and high-ranking bureaucrats. The sparsely populated palaces and the eunuch-managed Im- petial City were off-limits to the public, This inaccessible space occupied a large proportion of the built-up area of the city, and it was both the geographic center of Peking and the political heart of the empire. Com- tion by walls and gates was fundamental in organi City in the north and the rectangular Outer Cit jor commercial center of imperial Pe \WCHITECTURE, MEDIA, AND REAL ESTATE SPECULATION 6 \e Outer City was smaller than the Inner City and lacked the majes- imperial center. Owing to the presence of the imperial palaces, there ‘more residences—mostly of noble families and high-ranking and more commerce in the Outer period, as the né ents and commerci sic center of gravity further shifted to the Outer: imposed significant barriers to traffic, and city gates became major ‘A downtown section appeared near the streets and markets in the ly populated area just outside Qianmen in the Outer City, Here devel- ‘a great congestion of merchants, shopkeepers, peasants, workshops, the Inner City and the Outer Although other subcenters also emerged during the -1 occupied the top rank ands of the own of imperial64 (CHAPTER THREE Peking, the commercial and entertainment quarter at Qianmen attracted sojourners from throughout the empire and beyond. The political and economic system of the imperi duced an imbalance between the Inner and Outer Ci economic activities in the downtown Qianmen atea, residents that the Outer City could not match the elegance of, the palaces and imperial domains in the Inner City. According tobi ‘Susan Naquin, the local urban life in the Outer City was only sketchily represented in visual media before the nineteenth century, and the recom- ‘mended tourist sights in popular guidebooks in this period were mostly limited to places in the Inner City and the countryside.” Downtown, Peking, was conceived by its residents as an inferior secular space, in sharp contrast with the sacred imperial domain, The physical and symbolic centrality of the imperial domain skewed the locations of markets and defined the meaning of downtown in imperial Peking. period thus pro- In spite of the burge: of imperial Peking f as the economic center Republican Peking, 1911-1937 The t nn from tradi ‘of the Qing dynasty in r9r4 marked Peking’ trans tion and imperialism to modernity, and Wangfujing emerged as the new downtown commercial center in sepublican Peking. The republican period ‘witnessed major changes in the market system and the locations of dot towns in Peking, with the Inner City gaining an upper hand over the Outer City." The Oing-era restrictions on Inner City commerce had vanished, and the concentration of wealthy families there provided the for high-end markets, The variely and number of businesses increased, and old and new styles of commercial establishmen jerated. Host ing new styles of specialty shops, department stores, and indoor market ‘Wangfujing surpassed Qianmen and became the emblem of new consum- erism and cosmop proximity to the foreign c in semicolonial republican Peking that redefined the economic geography and reordered power relations between places in the city. istory of Wangfujing is the history of Peking’ encounter wit West.” After its defeat in the Opium War e Chinese go ‘ment signed the Treaty of Ti 65 ‘icians in the early 1900s contributed further to the growth of Wangtuj cosmopolitan marketplace, Many of the Wangfujing were owned by imported goods ymmercial establishments nets, and almost all of them sold Europe, Japan, and the United States, Wangfujing’s e economic clout and tastes of foreigners from was the key clientele at -al Chinese bourgeois joulders with foreigners while strolling along its ng promenades. Oianmen formed a triangle of commercial cen aristocrats rubbed wed and we ist Peking, 1949-1978 us republican e, corruption, and class the CCP was active in the cities in its early days, 927 it was driven into the countryside by the Nationalist Party and watching the * After the CCP came to power in 1949, i urban evils and to list product minating foreign control ‘se measures included, for example, deporting foreign residents, bui ers, reducing service sectors, and eliminating private had a devastai We 1970s, Pekin6 cuaPren THRE poor quality of goods and services. Many stores were closed down, land those open were often staffed with unfriendly clerks. According to (0,200 restaurants in 1949, But by the 1970s, when the the number of restaurants shrank when the pop total popul: to only 656. The number 1ed from 70,000 in the early 19508, centers invariably suffered from the socialist period, Wangfu- onal character quickly ivate shops were replaced wit mes were changed to Ch street of Wang- located through owned Earlier downtown commer anti-urban disinvestin department stores. ese ‘names with strong soci establishments lacked ids of the former Imps sacred site in the country. With the iconic portrait of Mao and m revolutionary histor socialist China and a highly ly ‘complex and Tiananmen Square forme exes narrating Chinese of the new nizing the urban society and spatial Global Beijing, 1978-Present: Making thfa cnarren 1HREx largest concentration of spe- ized buisiness services firms. The development of the CBD is @ product ‘used urban mas- of targeted state policies. The city government strategical design firms in the pl: in 1993. It stated that e functions of fins tion, commerce, culture, and entertainment should be n 1998, the Beijing city government issued the Specific g that the CBD would be located in Chaoyang .¢ city government established the CBD Administration Committee to supervise all development act ties. In 1999, the central government appointed Wang Oishan, the former .e of the China Construction Bank, as the mayor of Beijing. Since of the city administration {national firms and financial istrict with mul hen, it has become one of the primary go to build a financial district that can institutions to Beijing. “The arca allocated for the CBD is at the crossing of Fast Third Ring Road and Jian’guomenwai Boulevard. “The site used to be an industrial area with a number of large manufaetur- ng facilities. Approximately fifty-four thousand families worked and lived in the area.” However, the city government envisioned a new modern business district emerging from there. The existing manufacturing fac ties had to be relocated elsewhere, old residential buildings demolished, ‘and residents evicted. The first step in turning the area into a modern business district was to draft a master plan accommodating global busi- ress functions. the preparation of the CBD master ph practice of inviting international architect 1 square kilometers |_ Beijing followed Shan, 08 for publicity" In 2000, st international desig eight international 1 participation together a jury committee of international experts. The cor selected the design by Johnson Fain & r the 093, the city government competition to select a deta chose the desig ARCHITECTURE, MEDIA, AND REAL ESTATE SPECULAI 6 Ithough two American their designs was used as the mn Institute, an af ‘ms won the design competitions, neither of final master plan. Instead, Beijing ate of the city government, combined Irom different proposals and made the final master plan, For the city gov resulted from international design compe it was a global product. As with the development of Pudong financia in Shanghai, the city government in Beijing used inter sign firms in the first publicity campaign to promote the new CBD. In contrast to older coi re is litle cultural heritage or history associ tare-kilometer site ¢ cultural vacuum, p with the four hosen by the government for the new CBD. To mned prestigious internat projects. In the few s i " yt years leading up to the 2008 Oly UBD saw construction of dos h c 4 sof signature buildings —office sl uury hotels, shopping plazas, high-rise apartments, —from various ren ed by local boosters for place making, ¥y government officials used a ric oire of images of other in their discursive construction of the in the West, an in New York City. On the official website of the CBD. ittee of Beijing, a lashing picture of Manhattan’ sky- inently displayed.” Under the gleaming image reads a slogan: Beijing/Chaoyang, Downtowns and CBDs—in of urban modernity for city imagined modernity is centered on office sky~ new infrastructure, and the priority of attra city government clearly ing investment. In ‘companying the masteris to create a perfect urba 0 forma ing municipal government issued a series of policies designed and Fortune Global 500 companies to establish sadquarters in the CBD. These policies aimed to reduce to attract mi their regional inferior space submerged under the pol tional space of global flows. The CBD is a ' ARCHITECTURE, MEDIA, AND REAL ESTATE SPECULATION ™ ‘1980s and 1990s, the new CBD. the city to the global financial st government compounds, have been re power and cent houses the work of new CBD. Architectural Spectacles: From SOHO NewTown to the Commune to Ji OHO SOHO China distinguished itself from other real estate firms by cre )per with his property de- ly 1990s, when the state had ed the property market and r if, Zhang Xin, studied econ fe 1980s and worked on Wall Street hefore coming back to China in carly 1990s. The hus team used innovative architecture ‘ban design extensively in the building of their real estate empire in cijing ist major project in Beijing—SOHO New- he late 1990s—is a high-end resident ‘ment units located within inese developers paid scant at Most new apartment bui $s" works in its pub- concept to Beijing’ricvas 3.4. SOHO Newiwn, Bejing. Photograph courtey of SOHO China, in the West. The individual apartment units at SOHO New Town, many of ‘which are as large as 250 square meters, combine dwelling and work areas few fixed partitions ants can divide the space as they York, a reference frequently made by Zhang Xin when