Recent changes of city morphology of Shanghai and the river as an open public space
Ilija Gubic
Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy
Hui Lv
Tongji University, Shanghai, China
Topics: Hybrid typologies of public urban space
Introduction
Since the 1970s, global economy has led the urban world to a new era. Urban centres have regained their leading role in global economy. Like many other Asian cities, Chinese cities have been fundamentally undergoing a transformation process in the previous decades, as a result of globalization and intensive modernization. When regional planning system was approved in 2001, the total number of citizens in Shanghai was 16.7 million, including 3.8 million people that can be described as floating population while current data shows the number of 18.6 million. Modernization of the city started with housing renewals in 1980s and was fallowed by a large-scale infrastructure projects in 1990s resulting in massive restructures of the urban fabric. Old districts were torn down although some of historical or architectural values and their residents resettled in remote suburbs. All those changes in urban morphology have made Shanghai'
s public urban spaces so different from traditional ones in terms of scale, functions and symbols since Shanghai used to be a colony of the west countries and now is a huge international city where the Eastern culture meets the Western. This year, the world EXPO will be held in Shanghai, and the master plan proposes public urban spaces of large dimensions planned for 700,000 visitors of the EXPO site daily. The paper will discuss typology of open public spaces within the EXPO area and try to give an answer about the future of that hybrid space. Since the river is crossing EXPO site, we will focus on the river as an open public space of great importance and opportunities although EXPO didn'
t use all of its potentials.
Key words: Public space, EXPO, Shanghai, globalization, river
RECENT CHANGES IN SHANGHAI URBAN DEVELOPMENT AND CONCEPT OF OPEN SPACE
In 1843, when Shanghai opened its ports to the outside world, it was already a very prosperous city. The establishment of Concession changed the outlook of Shanghai and also changed the public living sphere of the city. In this colonial period, public space of Shanghai was represented by the Race Course, which was built for colonists. In many cases it played a role of a park or square in usual life of residents in the concession. In 1872, residents of Shanghai began to live in the Lilong, which is considered to be traditional Shanghai residential space. Lilong, with its typical semi-public space, and some new visions in design of traditional houses is not quite well preserved in Shanghai. Until 1951, the Race Course was rebuilt into People'
s Square, and Shanghai'
s public spaces reached the era of squares.
According to Comprehensive Planning of Shanghai (1999-2020), 16.5 million people will be living in Shanghai by 2020. The fact is that the population already reached 18.6 million in the year 2007. During the 10-year period from 1998-2007, the city almost doubled the size of urban construction area. Urban construction has become "Extension-type growth", and there is a 5-10 km wide stretching band around the city core. Dynamically growing, city provoked destruction of the traditional urban space, especially traditional public space. Old districts were torn down and their residents resettled in remote suburbs.
Development of the Pudong district, which was founded in 1992, has shown determination of China'
s reform and opening. Through plan for improving the district, the traditional urban texture was destroyed. It became representation of the new spatial type in Shanghai.
In December 2002, Shanghai was awarded organisation of the World EXPO 2010, which was built along the Huangpu River. Also there is a renewal of the waterfront of Huangpu River although not all the potentials of the river and its waterfronts have been used. Varieties of open public green spaces are planned. If we think about Shanghai as a sustainable city, than we need to create 20 square meters of greenery per capital although Shanghai had 6.5 square meters 8 years ago when the last analysis was made. Lack of public green spaces is a problem of China in general but also for Shanghai although the government seems to have made some progress during the time before the EXPO. They also have a plan to make 100-meter-wide forest rings surrounding the city, together with five broader forest belts und eight green corridors. In Shanghai, government planned to build a public park in every district at least one hectare in size.
Shanghai declared to be UNESCO Creative City in 2009, which brought fundamental changes to this city in urban development; however we are sure that Shanghai would be developed in same speed even without organizing great events. Other cities of China have become competitive in fallowing Shanghai since the "Policy of the Open Door" in 1978, when China started being recognized as the country with the fastest growing national economy in the world. As we know, this growth has many connections with urban growth. Especially now, when China is hosting big events, planning of open public space is one of the major tasks of planners, and some results are already visible. Chinese officials seem to have put some institutional pressure on planners and designers since open public spaces in Chinese cities support the concept of representation of China as large and expensive, and at the same time show cosmopolitan modernity. Scale and design of public spaces usually do not fit the everyday life and aesthetics of the neighbouring areas. Moreover, in the world of competitiveness among cities or even firms, architects design forms which are usually not connected to the urban context or concept. Public spaces in China are now created for its citizens, although are usually not humanized in scale. During the whole emperor'
s time parks, squares and gardens were made just for imperial court society. In the centre of the capital city the Forbidden City was built, where the name itself tells that no public was allowed, while in Europe central spaces were social spaces, open for everyone. In recent period planning and designing open public space has not been on the list of city'
s priorities because of several problems concerning overcrowding, high urban density, different needs of people, shortage of building land, and others. All those problems are related to highly developing economy of China and increasing number of its population.
SHANGHAI AND ITS RIVER
Many scholars have expected fifty-five percent of the world'
s population to be living in cities by this year; therefore, we need to focus on preserving water resources while exploring full potential of urban life. Through history life in cities has been very strongly related to water, not only for personal water consumption, but also for public space demand. Focusing on the river in Shanghai we can find the symbiotic relationship between urban life and public spatial function of water. The Yangtze River Delta is composed of the metropolitan centres of Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang making the largest metropolitan area in China. This geographical area is inhabited with more than 90 million inhabitants, around 55 percent of which live in urban centres. Economy of the Yangtze Delta contributes more than 20 percent of the country'
s gross domestic product, and 29 percent of total foreign trade which is to be expected knowing that Shanghai has the largest cargo port in the world. To summarize, this metropolitan area comprises 2.2 percent of total land area in China and has 11 percent of total population. The city's river length is two thousand kilometres; river network density per square kilometre is 3-4 km, in which Huangpu River and Suzhou River are the most important ones. River is born to be one of the most important parts of spaces in this city.
HOW DOES THE RIVER INFLUENCE SPATIAL PLANNING OF SHANGHAI
As well as opening of Shanghai port in 1843, the inland river shipping deeply influenced the development of Shanghai City, promoting the city's industrialization with most of its industries by the waterfront. As a symbol of reform and opening in China, Pudong New Area plays an important role in economic development around Yangtze Delta and even all over the country. Due to the rapid urbanization, large amount of untreated water has been discharged, and the water network area has been reduced. The river density reduces from the centre to the skirts of the city. Planning the country'
s future will require investments in developing city clusters within a mega-region framework. Global cities in China and metropolitan ones, such as Shanghai and Beijing, Hong Kong as well, have smaller satellite cities and they need to be integrated better in their regions with new planning approach and philosophy.
There are some doubts that EXPO is going to help Shanghai as a city or that there will be more benefits for entire region where YRD would play important role. During the last decade Yangtze Delta region has been growing as a result of foreign investments and now the Government are trying to link investors with the specific regional development plan. That plan pays attention to smaller cities and their possibilities to be included in network so that regional division could be prevented and equity promoted. We are aware how investments influence the development of the place. Many investors demand infrastructure or choose to invest in a place where infrastructure is overlapping with their needs. There is a demand for improving rail connections from the city to suburbs and further into rural areas. Some scholars are convinced that sustainability and development are assured only when investments are allocated in larger regions. So, sustainability and liveability should be a long term plan for the YRD mega-region, especially because of dynamic economic growth and rapid urbanization within the region.
RIVER AND EXPO SITE
Focusing on the theme "Better City, Better Life", this year EXPO is going to be the first World Exposition on the theme dedicated to the city exploring full potential of urban life in the new millennium. Better life is not only about using water as a material resource but more as a cultural and aesthetic value of urban life of Shanghai and China in general. System of rivers in Shanghai should be improved and renewed with a positive impact of the EXPO 2010. The Exposition Park that is located at the waterfront of Huangpu River is finished and ready to host 6-month long great event with 200 participants and 70 million visitors, most of them from other cities in China and Asia. Choosing that site for exhibition tells us that waterfront is expected to play an important role in dynamic urban life in Shanghai in future. Sustainable design of some of the pavilions will influence the waterfront area since some of them will be preserved and maintained after the exhibition and will be used for organisation of future cultural events. Those events should keep citizens interested in spending quality time in waterfront area. Construction of Suzhou Creek and other urban river areas can serve people as a valuable space for urban life and can be seen as both open public space and cultural resource. Although the river has potential it is not clear if EXPO is to use all of them. Some people think that river is actually dividing EXPO area more than it is connecting two parts of the site, as well as two parts of the city. According to Expo plan publication, total open space in Expo site is about 27.18 km2. And the river area in the site is up to 1.6 square kilometres. Open spaces in Expo site are multifunctional and multilevel. Detached from the function, there are squares, parks, parking lots, roads, etc.
EXAMPLES
As we know EXPO is one of the largest international gatherings and is a symbol of innovation, development and progress. Exhibitions present architectural program and can be traced back to almost ancient times. We can observe changes and constants in architectural typologies following architectural forms of great exhibitions through history. Exhibitions were historical points of significant architectural researches and results in field of modern architecture, in all their phases. Those results were linked to spatial concept, social problems, artistic effects, as well as to materials and new building techniques. Program of exhibitions is constant as an everlasting formula, with all important changes of size, contents, techniques and information. As something constant, exhibitions also have their own temporary character, they are organized periodically. Exhibitions always represent one or more great buildings that are usually used in literature as a mark of each period in "cross-section" of architectural practice. Almost all crucial points of history of modern architecture in the last 200 years can be shown through great exhibitions or other exhibition events overview. The Eiffel Tower built in 1889 for the EXPO brought the world'
s respect and sense of pride and identity to Paris and France. We can also observe it from another point of view. World'
s fairs were also acting as sings of development and instant growth of cities and nations. Competing to host the next EXPO can improve social, economic and environmental resources, raise and solve some questions for many cities and nations. EXPO and other fairs of national or global importance bring high amount of attention to many cities together with long-term benefits. There is also an opportunity for economic development, restructuring bridges, tunnels and highways. There are several examples of cities that used EXPO as a guiding power for recovering waterfronts and developing areas of former industrial zones. A good example is Paris that has held eight EXPOs in not more than 100 years with rapid development of the city during given periods. Most of EXPO sites are along Seine River and are public spaces for citizens and tourists. Now, the Seine River, with the legacy of EXPO sites, is a symbol of Paris. In 1968, San Antonio'
s HemisFair was the first officially designated international exposition held in the south-western United States. As a part of the overall HemisFair project, the city decided to extend its River Walk so that the River Walk can be linked with the HemisFair grounds. After that, the River Walk was extended for the second time. This time it was in order to connect to a small lagoon inside the mentioned park. In Lisbon, there was an EXPO in 1998 with a 5 km wide strip covering 50 hectares at Lisbon's east end alongside the Tagus River. With a new bridge across the river, there was a connection between the two river banks.
RIVER AS A FUTURE PUBLIC SPACE IN SHANGHAI
People responsible for construction of the city should pay attention to design of buildings and their functions at waterfronts and alternatively place emphasis on cultural construction around the area. There are several ways of doing it by learning from experience of other nations. The Government can propose, coordinate or organize some activities that Shanghai can use to attract people'
s concern and demand of the river especially within the city. The river and its waterfronts could work as an open public space supporting communication and interaction and create a new network among citizens. For the entire Huangpu River it is possible to allow green line with attractive functions along the river that could be a common element to the whole length of the Huangpu riverside, joining the two parts as a whole and improving sustainable policy of Shanghai. For the EXPO section of Huangpu River, it is possible to introduce new elements for the river and riverfront to make the place a future public centre for the city of Shanghai. Permanent public space along the river can become a memory of the short term important event. After the EXPO, until a new development of the site, several years will pass and that will make public space useless during the time gap. The river with green line and attractive functions on its waterfront will be a hybrid public space for the city. As the city develops into a new era, the Huangpu River could be a common element of the city, joining the two parts as a whole and improving sustainable policy of Shanghai. The River can be a pavilion on the water during the EXPO 2010 and will be a landmark of the city after the EXPO 2010. It will also make a pleasant tour to see a view of the city from the river. There are already several public parks on the riverside. And as one thing, a green line will connect all types of open public spaces to a hybrid element which make the city more interesting and better in the future.
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Preserved Lilong neighbourhood in the central Shanghai, source www.maps.google.com
Pedestrian Street of Lilong, photo by I. Gubic on November 28th 2009.
People'
s Square with surrounding neighbourhood, source www.maps.google.com
Traffic as a border of People'
s Square, photo by I. Gubic on November 28th 2009.
Map showing typology of squares within the EXPO area, analysis done by Gubic, Lv, Sun and Huang
Open public space under construction, photo by I. Gubic on November 25th 2009.
Map showing typology of green public spaces
within the EXPO area,
analysis done by Gubic, Lv, Sun and Huang
Open public space of EXPO, photo by I. Gubic on November 25th 2009
Public space in the central Shanghai, photo by I. Gubic on November 27th 2009.
Huangpu River and its EXPO waterfronts, source www.maps.google.com
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