Historical Introduction and Casino Development about Macau

当代西方建筑理论 contemporary western architectural theory 2015 - 2016 case study

historical introduction and casino development about macau case study: urban planning development and gaming indust, how it changed a street and the old casino district

华南理工大学建筑学院

冯江

advisors FENG JIANG

彭长欣

peng changxin

SOUTH CHINA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, ARCHITECTURE BERGEN SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE

关颖 ying alice guan

index

introduction 3

history of macau 4 - 9

case study 10 - 22

history introduction

I want to introduce the history of Macau by explaining how the peninsula city came to life for centuries - when the Portuguese and Chinese collaborated to enhance the city. The Chinese and the Portuguese were literally using each other’s for benefits.

The next chapter is a case study about a specific historical street and an old casino district that has been developed in different stages in the economic flourishes. It is about the overall structure for the chosen spaces to analyze and understand more How the architecture changes together with the modern world.

“Contemporary Western Architecture Theory” course by associate professor 冯江 Feng Jiang and 彭长欣Peng Changxin have taught me to understand how important is to study articles and books that are related to architecture. Knowledge will be improvement to criticize and appreciate architecture in different periods of time.

Our group consists of four persons. We chose the “Tokyo, Typo-Morphology of Tokyo” article from the magazine Monster, Perspecta 40 written by Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Ryuji Fujimura. We used one year to translate, analyze, research and understand the article word by word – what was the main attention behind this article and the overall focus about this architecture publication. When you finish a text there may be unknown new words and descriptions related to the article. It is these kinds of new words and thoughts that make the reading progress - to study in depth.

Keywords from the article; Tokyo, urban renewal, Core Metabolism and Void Metabolism and four “species of development; Subdivurban, Urban Village, Pocket Blocks and Commersidence.

After reading the article I have read so many books related to my subject about Macau and the Tokyo article. Before I would never read so many books about one specific keyword / topic. I want to say thank you, as an architecture student now I am more interested to learn even more. I hope South China University of Technology, School of Architecture keep this class and give the new graduate students to take this course in the future.

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macau history existing situation For a couple of centuries the people in Macau lived their everyday life without any disturbance, but from the 1500s till 1999 the Portuguese came to the small peninsula1 and took over a big part of the city. Now it is still a mixture of people that became aware of the opportunities of western and eastern cultures and the discoveries in this piece of land. China was one of the most important countries in the East especially thanks to Macau that was situated in a strategic point on the western side of Pearl River Delta. Across from Hong Kong and bordered with Guangdong province, it had an overview and influenced the rest of China. It is one of the world’s most densely populated areas with 0,6 million in 2015. Macau is a fast growing city. They have two official languages – Chinese, mainly Cantonese, but also Portuguese. Macau’s size of land has increased because of the land reclamation, especially in Taipa and Coloane.

The total land area of the city is now 30,4 square kilometers, but in 1999 the enclave was only 23,8 square kilometers. It expands and new developments are being planned annually. Everything is mostly walk or short transportation distance because of the narrow land. The biggest thrive for the city is mainly tourism and gambling. The number of people that cross the border everyday are mostly immigrants and tourists that come from mainland China and Hong Kong because of the locality and easy accessibility. cultural pluralism Along the coastline the first settlements in Macau were fishermen and women.

Many fishing villages had a big resource with plenty of fish, but not anymore in the 20th century due to land reclamation and water pollution.2 The Portuguese tried to settle on China’s coast, but the frustration took over when the Chinese came kept the Portuguese off the land. They continued to sail to Shangchuan (上川, now the city of 台山, Taishan), Langbajiao (狼白澳) and final destination to Macau in the mid-15th century. These mentioned names that were once islands by the Pearl River Delta had an important role for the Sino-Portuguese trade. The Portuguese became part of the inhabitants and expanded the trade at the peninsula Macau. Between late 16th century and early 17th century there were at least four sea routes as their base; Macau and Lisbon via Goa, Macau and Nagasaki in Japan, Macau and Mexico via Manila, and Macau and Timor. Macau’s wealthiest period was between 1550, the starting point of the Portuguese settlement till 1650. First the Chinese government banned the trade from foreigners, but gradually they got weak in their knees and said yes when the Portuguese offered yearly rent to Macau and agreed to some conditions that were suggested by the government.

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Politically, there were also advantages of them to stay and they helped the Chinese government to deal with the other foreigners and the pirates on the sea. Militarily, Chinese were weak in that period, and they would struggle to expel the foreigners.

Economically, all the taxes from the foreign trade was a good income for the government.3 It was clear that the Chinese and the Portuguese were benefiting by having each other as company.

Eventually from 1553 to 1557 the Portuguese started to establish themselves to trade, do religious missions and live the eastern life. It was clear that China trusted the Portuguese to enter when they gave them an enclave to administrate.

It was a way to control foreigners and still get a big profit from the trade. In 1601 the Dutch discovered that Macau was controlled by the Portuguese. The new foreigners wanted a trade market with China without Portuguese to be the in-between traders in Macau. The years continued with battles as trade enemies until the last battle in 1622. The Dutch retreated and went on to Taiwan.

Figure 1. early days in Macau at a street market.

Fish was the main resource.

Macau constructed the first “western style” buildings in China like churches, theatres, universities and hospitals that are still in use and attracts tourists. The city is an example of how the urban fabric and mixture of two types of natives interchange over generations and cultures. Two architects Carlos Marreiros (马若龍) and Jose Maneiras (马斯华) constructed some buildings in Macau, they purposefully combined both Portuguese and Chinese elements including Chinese symmetry, fengshui, use of furniture etc.4 The famous church of Sao Paulo by Jesuit Carlo Spinola was a fusion of Western and Asian influences. In 1568 a city wall was built that was meant as a defense construction against the Dutch and Chinese pirates. For some time, it separated the Portuguese side as the Christian city with churches, private individual houses, avenues, gardens and the domination of settlement of the Praia Grande area, from the Chinese side countryside with farm lands and dense neighborhoods that reflected the population. When walking down the street today, it is clear that the cityscape was transformed and puzzled through different styles and inspirations - with colorful small Portuguese tiles covered on the public spaces and the high vertical density blocks.

There are buildings with history and the street signs are in Portuguese and Chinese.

With the narrow streets, intimate atmosphere and details on the architecture – It feels like you are in Europe and Asia at the same time.

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the name of macau The Portuguese traders sailed across the sea and came to the peninsula in 1553. When the foreigners came on shore, they stepped outside of A-Ma Temple (媽閣廟) and asked the name of the place (See Figure 2). The locals misunderstood and thought they asked the name of the temple. They answered “Ma Kok / Ge” (媽閣) and became “Macau” in Portuguese that was similar to Ma Kok in Chinese. Before that time the peninsula did not include the islands of Taipa (氹仔) and Coloane (路環). To reach these two islands before 1972 you had to travel by boat from Macau. In 1999 Coloane and Taipa connected together as one big island for tourist developments.5 The name shi zi men (十字門) means “the gate of the cross”- named Figure 2. A-Ma Temple, about 1550 and 1999 after the waterways that they usually crossed Hengqin islands on the west and the Taipa and Coloane islands on the east. The waterways formed a cross as Chinese character 十 and a symbol for Christianity that the Portuguese were coming – God has chosen this place for them6 (See Figure 3). Later the Chinese called it ao men (澳門). “Ao” (奥) means the port so this place was called “gate of the port”.7 Macau making a living with foreign trade In 1637, the British entered the enclave and also wanted a piece of China to trade with all the goods from the East. When they tried to enter the mainland they were informed by the Chinese government that they had to go back to Macau to wait for permission to apply for trade purposes. Not before in 1685, Kangxi, the Qing emperor, decided to open China’s ports to foreigners.8 From the start it felt like the Chinese wanted to play with the foreigners. The deal to allow foreign trade in China was on and off. The Portuguese first made money of silk and tea, gradually opium, controlling prostitution and sale of coolies were the next exported goods overseas. From the 19th century gambling took over as the main money industry.

Figure 3. A map in the early 20th century.

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In different cities gambling became illegal like in mainland China and the city Hong Kong, except Macau. With this opportunity the gambling business started to be an industry, where all the Chinese crossed the borders and came to Macau to gamble.

The addiction to opium seemed to get out of control across the population and more Chinese were smoking opium and had difficulty to handle the increased amount for the years to come. The addicted drug was Macau’s major money maker. All the foreigners decided to stop the opium trade, except the British. While the British had anchored their ships in Hong Kong harbor, Lin Zexu from the government wanted to attack the foreigner ships. The First Opium War broke out in 1839, not till 1842 the war ended and Hong Kong was signed to the British. To write it short, the second opium war broke out in 1856 and lasted till 1860. The Europeans forced their way up and wanted to stay in the country. Kangxi was open-minded when he hired a religious Jesuits, Catholic Church member and allowed foreign trade and accepted

Christianity to China.9 Western countries went through different phases and revolutions, where they had been developing and adventuring to “the outside world”. Europeans sailed and traded around continents, while Chinese on the another hand was standing still and had their own empire to carry on. They were not curious about “the outside world”. Chinese were smart for a period letting the Portuguese to stay in Macau, but the other Western powers wanted to break the Portuguese monopoly and trade directly with China, rather than through Macau.

Portugal had only the right to administrate the people on the land for the governance and occupation, but not own the land. China had the sovereignty officially.

They liked to call Macau as “one country, two systems”. When the children were born they were called Macau citizens, not Chinese. There was a clash of two political structures - Chinese could benefit from taxes, and the Portuguese could benefit from the trading. In 1849 till 1976 the Portuguese took the opportunity to rule Macau as the British did with Hong Kong. They also wanted to control Taipa and Colona’s territories.

Foreigners made Macau as a free port and took what they thought were right. Chinese government started to decline Portuguese domination and wanted back full control of activities at the enclave, but it was hard as Macau was moving more towards democracy than other parts of mainland China.

Under the Second World War, Macau was sheltered from the war and became a haven flooded by waves of refugees. In 1941 the population grew steadily since 1937 when Sino-Japanese War leapt from 150 thousand to half a million.10 People were sheltered in hospitals, churches, homes, schools, clubs and even streets were filled with people beneath the arcades.

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Since the Portuguese began to settle and do business in the mid-15th century, two systems of politics, economy and culture started to develop. The Chinese and Portuguese created interactions between two cultures. The Portuguese had the enclave till 1999 when it was returned to China with Macau Special Administrative Region (MSAR) of the People’s Republic of China. The MSAR government is part of international organizations and part of to 60 international treaties.11 An example is that it is illegal to gamble in China, but it is the main industry in Macau. It has some sovereignty yet still there is more to work with their constraints that are tied to the mainland China. Portugal and China used Hong Kong as an example for Joint Declaration between Britain and China as a model – by observing the trace itself from

the architectural point of view that this was an old trading city. How the structure of the architectural, cultural and religious influences East meets West. A city of God, a city of trade, and a fortified city, Macau was also a city of the arts.12 Macau has always been a strategic importance for trade both China and the western countries. The location position in the South China Sea (南海) trade has brought wealth and flow of people into the enclave. Here is where the first Europeans established trade gateway before entering China. By having the advantages Macau has become one of the most international cities in mainland. Is Macau a Chinese city? For Macau was never really Chinese or European. It found a balance between the two continents and established something new. The architecture and urban spaces affect the urban culture with all the iconic buildings. Living in density, mountain and water sources shape the city and urban life. Buildings and urban spaces are being fabricated through by interweaving. Urban textures in Macau are connected to the daily life, different spaces and mixing different generations with the past and the future.

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REFERENCES 1

Peninsula - an area of land almost completely surrounded by water except for isthmus connecting

it with the mainland. Word definition. Accessible from

http://www.dictionary.com/browse/peninsula . Downloaded from 05.08.2016

2

Hao Zhidong, Macao. History and Society, p. 69

3

Hao Zhidong, Macao. History and Society, p. 17

4

Hao Zhidong, Macao. History and Society, p. 110 (Song Boniang, Zheng Miaoxian and Huang

Yanhong, Aomen Wenhua Fangtan Lu –Interviews on Macau culture)

5

Pons, Philippe, Macao, p.27

6

McGivering, Macao Remembers, p.148

7

Leong Hoi Keng, Aomen Tese Wenxian Zhiyuan Yanjiu, p. 12-3

8

Hao Zhidong, Macao. History and Society, p. 22

9

Hao Zhidong, Macao. History and Society, p. 27

10

Facts from Museu De Macau exhibition

11

Liu Bolong, Macau in 2002 at www.macaudata.com/macauweb/book269

12

Pons, Philippe, Macao, p.64

BIBLIOGRAPHY Hao Zhidong, 2011. Macao. History and Society. Hong Kong, Hong Kong university Press

Pina-Cabral, Joao De, 2002. Between China and Europe; Person, culture and emotion in Macao. New York, Continuum.

Pons, Philippe, 2004, Macao. London, Reaktion Books. Topographics.

ILLUSTRATION Figure 1

Photo by Ou Ping. A Voyage in Time, Macau: Museu de Arte de Macau 2005.

Figure 2

Photo by Lia Afong, British Library Reproductions

Figure 3

A map of Macau in the early 20th century. Atlas of Macao, Macau: Cartography and Ca

dastre Bureau of Macao Special Administrative Region Government.

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macau - historical street and casino development case study

keywords: historical street, first casino, casino development, cityscape, skyscraper, city change

introduction We are living in a time where the cities develop, not by itself, but according to a specific plan that is controlling the future growth. Macau city cultivates itself by integrating the everyday- and gambling life together. Now, the town is gradually turning into a gaming metropolis and changing the living conditions, by adapting to massive tourism and gambling. The locals are starting to get concerned

whether the casino industry is pulling the city in the right direction or not. If the city urban fabric is being changed towards the right direction? By doing a specific study of Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro (亞美打利庇盧大馬路) / San Ma Lu (新马路) and Lisboa Casino and the extension building, Grand Lisboa, we may find out the relationships between the historical, political, economic and physical factor that benefits this area of Macau.

I want to refer to the article “Typo-Morphology of Tokyo” from 2008, written by Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Ryuji Fujimura (translation by Eric Shiner). The article is from the magazine “Perspecta 40”, titled “Monster” and published by The MIT Press. The content is about the struggle of the “inner area problem” in the early 1990s and after the collapse – the economic bubble led to large metropolises and region cities - and how urban renewal built and manufactured the city. It looks at different issues, like private vs public, core metabolism from 1960s and todays’ void metabolism with freestanding houses, and analyzes four different species of development toward a Typo-Morphology of Tokyo; Subdivurban, Urban Village, Pocket Blocks and Commersidence.

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casino introduction Macau Peninsula1 has always been an exotic place to visit for people in the East Asia. It was a “get away” from the East to experience a section of “the West meets East” infusion atmosphere. It’s often referred to as “Las Vegas of the East”.2 Macau is a city of contrasts. A variety of Chinese and Portuguese cultures exchanged knowledge for at least 450 years, until today. The casino industry has caused Macaus`s economy boost, and increased construction activity and urban development. The government started to include the gambling industry in the planning of the city`s future. Use gambling to plan the future of the city. They receive high estimated gaming tax, about 80%, which is the government’s main source of income from the industries. Thanks for the gambling industry has changed the city drastically, but is it in a positive or negative direction?

Casinos are becoming main stream3, and has become a part of the tourism industry and the usual life for locals. Gaming business has grown into the social existence since mid-17th century, and was part of the economic tool to the city development since 1840. Even though Portugal administrated Macau for over four hundred years, and gave it back to China in 1999 as Macau Special Administrative Region, it did not affect the industry since it’s illegal to operate gambling in China and Hong Kong. It was kept legal and surpassed Las Vegas since 2007. The party never stops in Macau, thanks to 24-hours gambling at all of the city’s casinos.4 So far there are 35 casinos with luxurious hotel resorts and restaurants, and we can only imagine what more they want to develop and expand in the future. It is an active place to be, full of activity with bright colorful LED lights from every corner and public spaces. The business is increasing with more casinos than ever. With this big competition all year around, you can imagine the city life and the architectural townscape with high and low class of diversity - what makes Macau the new Las Vegas. Private property developers buy big plots to run these efficient buildings with gambling as the main resource and resort hotel for tourism. Modern casinos are super structures that are becoming part of Macau’s urban typology. Either it is a good or a bad sign for the city; it is changing the building typology. By embracing these decorative architectural typology and dominating other functions of building – maybe it will “collapse in typology”?5

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The first casino, Lisboa (葡京娛樂場) where it all started, is located in the heart of down town by the main road, Avenida do Infante D. Henrique and continues with the same street with another name, Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro (亞美打利庇盧大馬路) also known as San Ma Lu (新马路).

Lisboa Casino expanded and made a sister complex across the street of Figure 1. Grand Lisboa (behind) and Lisboa Casino(front).

Lisboa, called Grand Lisboa (新葡京).

Figure 1.

Now it is an iconic building and the tallest in Macau with 261 meter. The building started with 12 floors in 2007 and gradually added up to 58 floors, which apart from the casino gathering, hosts hotel and restaurant. The structure of the building is covered and shaped as a diamond. You can just imagine the reflection and image it gives when approaching the city and the first you see are Grand Lisboa. The architecture creates an icon that is detached from surround townscape. The site must be suited to the image of the brand, the casino. Architecture must serve as a symbol for the function to advertise the medium. China and Hong Kong do not permit legalized casino gambling, and therefore this spatially restricted legal location within China ensured Macau has enjoyed a comparative advantage and thus been exceedingly lucrative.6

Figure 2.. Macau in 2003.

Figure 2. Macau in 2016.

Land reclamation and expansion of the land. Big changes.

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changed the city Macau is still not a mega city, but the culture boom and the economy growth is starting to materialize, with a loose city structure that is starting to shape up. Some of the chopstick landmarks are beginning to contribute more to the Macau cityscape.

Schools, universities, gardens and parks were physically eating up, demolished in order to give way to hotels and casinos.7 It has been a bit of a struggle for the city to make growth in the gaming industry, MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions) and tourism. The master plan concepts had to be changed because of development of new casino´s, which means that the whole city development is being formed around the gambling industry, with less attention to other functions for the inhabitants. The local government has turned the gambling venues to support public functions. It has been an economic stimulation, job creation and improvement of tax revenues. Full employment was reached shortly after the liberalization and local wages progressively archived higher standards.8 The heavy investments in casino development influence the transformation for humans in Macau. It has been a drastic material change, casting architectural excess, chaos and extravagance into the cityscape.9 The changes have been extreme in few years. The big differences in a short period of time are illustrated on Figure 2 from 2003 and Figure 3 from 2016 plan view.

The scale of the expandability is still growing strong with high efficiency. We can also see that Macau´s growth is stretching out to the areas of Taipa (氹仔), Cotai (路氹城) and Coloane (路環), which is on an island, connected to Macau with new bridges. The island has been enlarged with landfill and land reclamation. Cotai has The Venetian, Macau’s world largest casino and hotel structure building. This area is developed in a rather more territorial way territory like. Apart from The Venetian there is also other giant structure of casinos and resorts. A well planned area for tourist attractions and gaming world. Major urban development projects have transformed the whole Cotai strip, now full of tower buildings, and unrecognizable to its residents.10 Areas with “none casino” spaces have drastically changed from having local shops like different restaurant cuisines, grocery stores and tailor shops, to now being claimed by money exchange services and banks.

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the old and new casino district

Figure 4. Street of Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro (亞美打利庇盧大馬路) / San Ma Lu (新马路) in 1920.

Figure 5. Same street and perspective picture taken in 1950.

Figure 6. Same street, picture from 2014.

I want to emphasis and do a case study by understanding the urban planning development and the gaming industry how it changed one of the busiest street, Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro (亞美打利庇盧大馬路 / San Ma Lu (新马路) and the old casino district of Macau. On Figure 7 next page there is the contour line I want to understand more about. From the West harbor it stretches till the end of Avenida do Infante D. Henrique Street where the Lisboa Casino and Grand Lisboa are.

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historical street

casinos

Figure 7. The blue contour lines are the area I have chosen to write about.

Almedia Ribeiro’s name was given as a street name because he was a Macau minister of colonies since Portugal administrated of the city. It is a busy district of historical and cultural relics from the Chinese, Portuguese and Macanese can memorize from history till today. It is the main avenue of Macau and extended from the South Bay (outer harbor) to the North Bay (inner harbor). It stretches through residential areas and colorful buildings with public functions such as Banco Nacional Ultramarino (Portugal’s overseas national bank11), typical China blocks of shops (where people live on upper floors, shops and offices on first floors), central post office, main square Largo do Senado, and Hotel Central (used to be a gambling hub, brothel and the first modern hotel).12 In 1918 the avenue was finished to reconstruct and the old buildings were demolished. Before it was renovated it used to be the urban street where the locals could walk down the street and find many attractive shops and events to go – like the famous city club at the Hotel Central, coffee shops, art galleries, cinema Apollo13 and many more, but all of them are now gone and turned to a tourist attraction street and busy carriageway. As you can see from Figure 4, 5 and 6 the turquoise Hotel Central was the tallest building on all photographs - Only one complex as the signal building in Macau that drew most attractions and activities.

Figure 8. Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro Street in the early days.

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The high density of living on the peninsula sees from the historical photos till now.

Residential complexes are growing on top of each other. Figure 8 is a perspective of the street in the early days. Self-built settlements on the roofs of high-rise buildings have been an integral part of Hong Kong’s history for over half a century.14 A book name Portraits From Above – Hong Kong’s Informal Rooftop Communities where two writers take study of illegal rooftop structures that are being constructed from basic shelters by locals. What I have observed after living one year and constantly visiting China as a student and tourist it is a common phenomenon to build on top of rooftops. The government has no control or insight of how to straighten up these shelters in modern life.

The official street name is Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro, but the locals gave a new name, “San Ma Lu” means New Road after the construction work. Today here is one of the typical streets to buy goods for tourist. The exterior most dated back from 1920’s with European and Chinese fusion of buildings with neo-classical style. The historical street is defiantly the gambling that was the biggest activity until it was relocated to Cotai strip since 1990. When the government regulated from the travel local avenue till these trafficated four lanes of carriageways and modernized façade tall buildings did not changed to any better outcome. They have kept the most historical part and include some small museums and arcaded on both side of the street with pastelcolored colonial buildings. Walking around Macau in the historical district, they have two lanes of carriageway and narrow streets. It feels like you are walking in a movie scene with a Western and Chinese atmosphere – the colorful and small Portuguese tiles on the facades, old hand carved stones on ground, the density and details on the buildings and also an old cemetery in the core of the city.

Largo do Senado Square or in English, Senate’s Square is a large open public space by San Ma Lu / New Road. It has a fountain and the colorful colonial buildings with Portuguese tiles on the ground. When you enter the city from mainland China border gate you have to take a public transportation to the downtown if you are a tourist. From distant you will see the Grand Lisboa diamond overarching the city landscape at the end of New Road (San Ma Lu). Once upon a time a local landmark – is now buried in today’s forest of high-rise buildings.15 When the time passes – manufacture of skyscrapers and blocks are a way to handle the modernization and develop the city further. It is the attitude - “every city does it, we can do the same”.

Modern architecture is detached art object from the surroundings and functioned as a system. By building chopstick blocks in the 20th century it had become what society expectation because of the capitalistic principles. Forests of towers have caused the wrong balance of the architecture which is lacking the human scale and how a body interacts with a complex that is overpowering your height and the city, than transforming and progressing together with humans and shape the town together.

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And does it suit with the context? Has it already overpowering the surrounding complexes because of the architecture is out of context and it does not matter anyway?

Frank Lloyd Wright’s philosophy about “half building, half landscape” likes one of his masterpieces Fallingwater – How important the complex becomes part of the context without disturbing the existence. To respect the historical and exisiting space.

Figure 9. Macau Peninsula in 2016.

Figure 10. Macau Peninsula in 2016 with blue lines that is enhancing the modern grid system and straight main directions of urban plan development.

Traditionally, casinos on the peninsula are more densely squeezed in-between the old urban fabrics, and interact with the existing architecture. The surrounding neighborhoods are being turned upside down to a standardized and generic area. In todays’ city fabric you see how the history of city proposal was planned and the strategy thrive through by achieving the urban planning view. The old city fabric was fragmented with small plots that were naturally developed (Figure 9). There are areas where public spaces and buildings had bigger expansion compared to the residential social housing with the high density and less squaremeters. In the modern composition of urban planning, there is a system which is less fragmented and chaotic that caused these intricate spaces. In figure 10 is also from 2016, but you see the blue lines that is enhancing the modern grid system and straight main directions of urban plan development. When we look further at how Macau has “upgraded” over time, with land fill and construction of a new district that was needed for the government, we can see that the casino projects have been settled in two different zones in the peninsula - The old district, Zone A, and the new district referred to as zone B. Zone B, the lower part of the peninsula is planned for residential and big developers to create casinos. In this zone a green lung, Alameda Dr. Carlos Assumpcao, strategically stretches through. . In the old district the spaces where planned after functions, but in the new zone they did the opposite, by first dividing 100m x 50/80m in a standard modern grid system, and then afterwards putting in the functions.

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Like I mentioned earlier the scale of the buildings may feel wrong. There is no variety, same width of the streets and no specific open and public spaces. Usually, there is commercial activity like restaurants and shops on street level, and housing on the floors above (Figure 9). These tall structures are usually packed with tourist resort and gambling offers. In the early days it involved brothel and unskilled coolie that sold themselves for unpaid loan. conclusion I have attempted to understand the historical development over time in a larger perspective on a bigger aspect - how the old casino district and Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro / San Ma Lu Street progress in a modern direction. As the article “Tokyo” from “Perspecta 40, Monster” stated – In defining these, we have sought to evaluate the peculiar qualities and value of architecture that arise through cooperation and development on a broader level, not on a building-by- building case where these trends are impossible to grasp.16 It is taken care of by the modern urban planning developers and locals to decide what historical and cultural part is going to be preserved. “The Historic Centre of Macau” became part of the world heritage list in UNESCO in 2005. Since the Portuguese administrated the city, there has been built a lot of Western inspired architecture with Chinese details. The city started to renovate and show the common history of Macau shared between these two cultures. As Yoshiharu Tsukamoto and Ryuji Fujimura wrote, it is more important to analyze the bigger structure of the city, than to say something specific about singular buildings which does not fit in with the building environment. This building does not suit in the environment – not building-by-building. To think in different scales, you have to understand the reality. In todays’ situation, by making one type of big block or skyscraper, there are no differences or relations. Modern architecture is certainly most cogent if it is interpreted as gospel-like, quite literally, a message of good news; and hence its impact.17 All the casinos in the old area, especially around the Grand Lisboa, seem to have extending floors of functions in the buildings, with addition in height, and construction of new freestanding buildings nearby. Architectural typology has been changing over periods of time. As seen on Figure 7, Hotel Central used to be the only tall building, but the townscape has drastically changed since the Portuguese gave Macau back to China as a Special Administration Region. When gambling became illegal in mainland China and Hong Kong people flooded over the border to Macau. The tourist statistics quickly rose, and the economic changed drastically in a positive way.

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The development of the tourism and construction of new casinos were a big stake in a short perspective of time, but the city expanded very quickly, and the building landscape was constructed taller and taller. Now there is a fine line between the old city, and the new part in the southeast and the big gambling development by Cotai.

There are bridges that connect both lands. Spaces are being filled up with this humongous new building typology. The mutation of urban space might be negatively viewed as a “collapse in typology�. This mutation is an urban morphology, via the transformation in the building typology, which spreads around the city. It´s expanding and changing the quality of spaces and the landscape. In the introduction, I mentioned the urban renewal that is happening in Tokyo, and the same thing is now also happening in Macau, especially in the Cotai strip.

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illustration

Figure 1

Unknown photographer. http://a2zmacau.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Casino-

Lisboa.-Sunset-View-From-Wynn-Macau.jpg

Figure 2

Image Copyright. 2016 DigitalGlobe. Google Earth screenshot from 2003

Figure 3

Image Copyright. 2016 DigitalGlobe. Google Earth screenshot from 2016

Figure 4

Unkown photographer. Picture from 1920. Street of Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro

Accessible from http://macauantigo.blogspot.no/2010/09/av-almeida-ribeiro.html

Figure 5

FormAsia photographer. Picture from 1950. Street of Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro

Accessible from http://macauantigo.blogspot.no/2010/09/av-almeida-ribeiro.html

Figure 6

Tuul and Bruno Morandi / Alamy Stock Photo photographer. Picture from 2012. Street of

Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro. Accessible from http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-china-

macau-avenida-almeida-ribeiro-san-ma-lo-69780769.html

Figure 7

Image Copyright. 2016 DigitalGlobe. Google Earth screenshot from 2016.

My edit: blue lines

Figure 8

Unknown photographer. Accessible from

http://seemacau.blogspot.no/2008/03/macau-in- past-second-series-ii-ii.html

Figure 9

Image Copyright. 2016 DigitalGlobe. Google Earth screenshot from 2016

Figure 10

Image Copyright. 2016 DigitalGlobe. Google Earth screenshot from 2016.

My edit: blue lines

20

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Tsukamoto, Yoshiharu and Fujimura, Ryuji (translation by Shiner, Eric), 2008.

Magazine Perspecta 40 Monster, Typo-Morphology of Tokyo, Cambridge, The MIT Press

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Tsukamoto, Yoshiharu and Fujimura, Ryuji (translation by Shiner, Eric), 2008.

Magazine Perspecta 40 Monster, Typo-Morphology of Tokyo, Cambridge, The MIT Press.

Page 41 Conclusion.

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Rowe, Colin and Koetter Fed, 1978, Collage City, Cambridge, The MIT Press

22