The Griffin Plan for Shanghai, 1904-1906.

Time: 17:30pm, 18th November  (Monday), 2019.

Place: Meeting room, Second floor, 4# Red Mansion, Peking University.

Speaker: Professor James Weirick.

Professor James Weirick teaches in Faculty of Built Environment, University of New South Wales. He holds MLA from Harvard University, and has rich international teaching experiences and publications. His research interests include urban design, landscape history and theory, and design theory and methods. He has a keen interest in the life work of Walter and Marion Griffin.

Abstract:

This lecture reviews the testimony emanating from Walter Burley Griffin (1876-1937) and his colleagues on which the claim for a Shanghai city plan from 1904-1906 is based; the modernizing impulses in Shanghai at the time; and the broader context of ‘New China’ reforms initiated by the Qing Dynasty in the first decade of the twentieth century. The project was a Chinese initiative, involved ‘a modern city on a new site’ located ‘a few miles’ from the traditional walled city, and was conceived as an alternative to the ‘narrow streets, swarming tenements and insanitary areas’ of the ‘old city’.

Organizer: