18 | CHAKROFF celebration of modernity.
One could be forgiven for ignoring the narrow alleys of the Old Town and the low rise lane-houses of the former French Concession: from the blue streak of the elevated road, this is a city of towers, whose illuminated forms alone puncture the mist.
Previous Spread: Six Level Stack at “Blue Hour” http://www.flickr.com/photos/fangwei/8287143935/
Down on the boulevards of the Former French Concession, a slightly different strategy is visible. Many historic lanes and structures are now (thankfully) protected by heritage laws. In these districts, building heights and street widths are limited by code. The Former French Concession is, and will likely remain, Shanghai’s most charming district, exuding historic character. It’s through lighting alone that they can participate in the construction of Shanghai’s modern self-image. The tree-lined avenues are often decked with a rotating selection of string lights representing various holidays, but throughout the year one thing is consistent: the trees are uplit with a bright green. These streets themselves, are of course somewhat unnatural: the plane trees29 were imported from Europe, and laid along the streets according the French designs, but by uplighting the trees with a colour so closely associated with the natural world, a kind of disconnect occurs.
Hyperreality is sometimes understood as the condition when the real and the virtual or the fictive are blended so effectively that distinction becomes muddled.30 Here, street lighting has been implemented to over-code the natural with the artificial, to upgrade the real to “Lighting has been implemented to over-code the hyperreal. Trees are kept, but the natural with the artificial, to upgrade the their authenticity questioned, their reality destabilized by real to the hyperreal.” something as simple as a wash of neon green. Shanghai’s urban lighting has reclaimed the French Concession for China, without resorting to architectural one-upmanship or casual demolition. Here, there is a celebration of the past, stripped of associations with colonial oppression. SHANGHAI DE LUX Lighting design and nocturnal illumination in Shanghai today thus plays into a metanarrative for China as the country struggles with the pressures of modernity: that of the reclamation of agency. The “Middle Kingdom” – arguably the most prominent and persistent of the world’s great ancient civilizations, finds itself recovering from a period of humiliation –a period when the civilization was first pulled apart by technologically-advanced invaders, then subjected to the vicious strains of forced modernization. Now, finally, China and the Chinese people are charting a modern course on their own terms, in 29 30
Sycamore, to Americans.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperreality
Xinhua Rd at Night Evan Chakroff