14 | CHAKROFF Consumerism was to reappear with a vengeance in the “opening up” era under Deng Xiaoping. 26 By the time China “re-opened” to the world, the neon advertisements of 1930s Nanjing Road had proliferated and spread to Hong Kong, Tokyo, Vancouver; to Times Square and Piccadilly Circus. By the 1980s, the architectural-scale advertisement was no longer novel (though the Blade Runnerscale was yet to come). In recent years, that neon glow has expanded to encompass whole storefronts, a phenomenon that can be seen across Shanghai, but especially in the facades designed for Louis Vuitton and other luxury brands. By the 1990s the Pudong skyline had become the apotheosis of this trend.27
This obsession with novelty is no surprise to a western observer, as the linear march of progress is a metanarrative that’s drilled into our psyche from birth in social, economic, religious, and historical contexts. In Asian cultural traditions, however, linear progression has not been so emphasized. Buddhism is known for its cyclical cosmology, and traditional Chinese art emphasizes replication, repetition, and minute, iterative improvements over years, if not generations. Even the rise and fall of political dynasties can be easily explained in a cyclical timeline, as tied intrinsically to the cosmic cycles of the heavens and the earth. It’s tempting to ascribe the China’s obsession with reinvention and novelty as a wholesale rejection of the former, cyclical worldview, in the interest of joining, finally, the modern world, and reclaiming her position as a world leader and font of influence; economically, socially, and culturally, and while this argument may hold for The Bund and Pudong, China’s relationship with her past is ultimately more nuanced and complex. The project of modernity in Shanghai does indeed involve the emphatic embrace of the novel, but it also embraces aspects of the city’s past, recontextualized. INFRASCULPTURE & HYPERREALITY 26 27
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Economic_Zones_of_the_People’s_Republic_of_China
While Pudong is often portrayed as the city of the future – miraculously built in 30 years from rice paddies, a look at any historical map will show that 1920s Pudong was the site of heavy industry, not idyllic fields.
Louis Vuitton, IFC, Shanghai (Jun Aoki, 2012) http://maosuit.com/stores/top-luxury-brand-storefacades-in-shanghai/