THE DEATH AND LIFE OF SHANGHAI’S ALLEYWAY HOUSES : RE THINKING COMMUNITY AND HISTORIC PRESERVATION上海里弄的生與死：社區及歷史保育的重新思考
The article analyzes the transformation of Shanghai’s alleyway houses (lilong), arguing that their heritagization has often privileged architectural materiality over the forms of community life that give them meaning. The authors propose a reorientation of the debate between the “death” and “life” o...
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| Published in: | Review of Culture |
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| Format: | Articles |
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Instituto Cultural de Macau
2015
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| Online Access: | https://www.icm.gov.mo/rc/viewer/pdfViewerParts/40050/3923 |
| Summary: | The article analyzes the transformation of Shanghai’s alleyway houses (lilong), arguing that their heritagization has often privileged architectural materiality over the forms of community life that give them meaning. The authors propose a reorientation of the debate between the “death” and “life” of these housing complexes, contending that their physical disappearance does not necessarily imply the end of social networks, although their reconfiguration results from urban policies, market logics, and preservation norms that do not always recognize the relational spatiality of everyday life. Methodologically, the text articulates a historical-cultural reading of Shanghai’s urbanism—marked by colonial legacies and accelerated cycles of modernization since the late 19th century and, above all, from the late 20th century onward—with a critical analysis of the assumptions underlying contemporary conservation practices. The main conclusions argue that effective preservation requires understanding the “blurred functions” between public and domestic spaces and the diversity of uses produced by orientations, access points, and internal circulation. Thus, safeguarding should be conceived as maintaining social ecologies and modes of cohabitation, not merely as the formal conservation of built typologies. |
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| ISSN: | 1682-1106 |