Стрелка Пресс: М.
Mao once called the Chinese «a blank sheet of paper», and the modernising
that came with the Cultural Revolution treated cities much the same. But Mao’s
destructive impulses were as nothing compared to the liberalised policies of his
recent successors. China has undergone urbanisation on a scale never seen
before — much of it speculative, some of it a brazen display of power. In this
incisive analysis by the acclaimed Sinologist Julia Lovell, we get inside the politics
of architecture and city-making in China. There is a colourful cast, from the
Western starchitects rushing into the land of opportunity, to political dissidents
such as Ai Weiwei, to rebellious residents singing defiantly as the bulldozers
advance. In this trenchant critique of urban policy, Lovell wonders what good all
this thrusting ambition will have been if the property bubble bursts.