BRIDGING URBANITIES reflections on urban design in Shanghai

Bridging urbanities authors are Josefine Fokdal holds a Ph.D. from TU Berlin and is a researcher in the field of spatial theory, housing, governance, co-production, and rapid urbanization with a geographical focus on Asia. She holds a chair in the department of planning at the University of Stuttgart. She has several published books in the field of urbanism and housing. Bettina Bauerfeind works at Dipartimento Architettura e Design DAD, Università degli Studi di Genova as external expert. She has published many researches in the field of urbanism and housing with many researchers. Worked with the Urban research group and previous member of habitat international.

The book is designed to serve various audiences and readers. Many graduates from architecture fields think to proceed to a higher degree (master’s degree). They refer mainly to university ranking like Top universities and others giving every university a yearly ranking based on overall and subject base ranking. These rankings evaluate master programs based on teacher’s research, citation, employment, but do not necessarily define how the program benefits the student in his development plan and career. Prof peter Herrle describes the dual master program of Tu berlin in detail making any graduate student comfortable in evaluating this master program. Researchers working on sustainable urbanism can benefit from this book if they are planning to use grounded theory in research for comparing two big cities that share the same development process and criteria. For architects in professional practice who want to get an overview of an Asian city’s architectural characteristics, development process, the role of culture, and planning regulations in the development this book is a good reference.

The book theme is centered around the creation of a dual master’s program of urban design. The program is taught between Tongji University and TU Berlin. How the program was initiated by cooperation between high-level officials in the two universities. Later development by studying the socio-economic, cultural, and physical differences between two countries that influenced the creation of this program. The involvement of several political, authorities, and urban planning bodies in the development process. The areas of interest in urban development and the commonalities and differences between the countries. Finally describes how high officials supported the program creation.

The book introduction gives clear messages about what the book is concerned about. The authors describe what is urban design, and how the two countries understand the term. Moreover, what is this profession about, the involved professionals and academics in the creation of the book by their articles within it. Various chapters introduce the effect of the German educated architects, and scholars on the urban design profession in china, and also the ones who graduated in the USA. Within the megaregions the effect of the absence of proper regional governance to guide the development. The similarities of fragmentation in the two cities of shanghai and berlin in the urban renewal process. Conservative effects of historical buildings and the guiding frameworks on the city urban fabric transformation. And the effect of mobility on disabled and elderly people’s movement in the city.

It is hard to say that the book includes knowledge from professional practice although many articles were written by professionals. The content is focused on theoretical concepts about sustainability, urban renewal, mobility, cultural influence on architecture, and historical conservation approaches in the two cities.

The book chapters are not closely linked in terms of the hierarchy of ideas and their relevance to the main book theme. The chapter’s ideas in sequence go through the invention of urban design in the USA in 1956 and its roots and application in Germany before that in 1910. Then a jump to discuss Chinese cites status, cultural transfer by the four categories he presents, the discourse of open space and closed space, and lack of proper governance in the development process in Chinese cities. A jump to street design in berlin then conservation approaches in the two cities, and methods of regeneration in berlin. Finally the characteristics of the dual master’s degree program of shanghai and TU berlin. Most of the book chapters are articles collected from topics and these days discourse of urban design. The book is very attractive in terms of internal illustration and graphs explaining and supporting the chapter’s content discussions.

The first time I saw the book on Amazon online platform it gave me a spark of the urban design approaches in shanghai and berlin. Then I thought it might be case studies of various projects in the two cities. But, unfortunately, it is a book about the invention of the dual master program between shanghai and berlin universities. The book index gives a clear message about the chapter’s content and the articles in it.

The authors included many references in every chapter if a reader wants to go through the chapter content in more detail. Every chapter is supplied by either relevant codes of practice, governance and guidelines, development project reports, related authorities publications, and many book references related to the chapter content.

You might say why I should consider reading this book. If you are a researcher using grounded theory in studying various cities as case studies then this book will give excellent insights to do that. If you are a practitioner and want to get an overview of urban design in the Chinese context then this book is a brilliant source. Maybe you are an architect looking for up-to-date debate and discourse on sustainable urbanism here is a good reference of general ideas in two cities from Europe and Asia. Graduates who want to understand how to evaluate a master’s program based on many criteria related to how much benefit it will give in professional practice but not the university ranking and reputation then I recommend every student to study the last chapter carefully to become a base to evaluate other programs. I enjoyed reading this book because it has relevant topics of these days debate in urban design and the many illustrations in it.

you might be interested in going deeper in the development of tenement housing development in berlin by reading this book, read my book review.