Evolving Heritage: Taishan Commons in the Post-industrial Society
“Evolving Heritage: Taishan Commons in the Post-Industrial Society” by Elaine Kwong aims to develop an alternative framework for heritage conservation and town development in peripheral counties in Greater Bay Area (Guangdong), using Taishan as the primary case study. Critiquing the widespread use of heritage in China as a political and economic resource for new development, the research proposes that heritage should be viewed as a socio-ecological network that enables sustainable urban evolution. As new modes of urbanity encroach on the very definition of rurality, the concept of heritage is becoming malleable and heterogeneous, with varied and contradictory parts, forming a new social construct that is open to cultural difference and fosters global consciousness. In the course of this shift, existing forms of self-organization (Commons) reconciles changing values, interests and conflicts that reflects the diversity of ecological conditions. Through a nuanced analysis of the evolution of urban typologies resulting from collective acts in Taishan’s communal history, the research will display an effective social governance and advocate for the recuperation of this local power as the key stakeholder for town development.
“Evolving Heritage: Taishan Commons in the Post-Industrial Society” by Elaine Kwong aims to develop an alternative framework for heritage conservation and town development in peripheral counties in Greater Bay Area (Guangdong), using Taishan as the primary case study. Critiquing the widespread use of heritage in China as a political and economic resource for new development, the research proposes that heritage should be viewed as a socio-ecological network that enables sustainable urban evolution. As new modes of urbanity encroach on the very definition of rurality, the concept of heritage is becoming malleable and heterogeneous, with varied and contradictory parts, forming a new social construct that is open to cultural difference and fosters global consciousness. In the course of this shift, existing forms of self-organization (Commons) reconciles changing values, interests and conflicts that reflects the diversity of ecological conditions. Through a nuanced analysis of the evolution of urban typologies resulting from collective acts in Taishan’s communal history, the research will display an effective social governance and advocate for the recuperation of this local power as the key stakeholder for town development.
- 2020
- Grantee: Elaine Kwong
Elaine Kwong is a Chinese-American architect and urbanist based in Los Angeles. She directs the design practice Desakota and teaches architecture and urban design. Elaine has taught design studios at USC School of Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design and South China University of Technology. She holds a Bachelor of Architecture from USC School of Architecture and a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from Harvard Graduate School of Design. Elaine’s Master’s Thesis Village Autonomy was supported by Harvard Asia Center and exhibited at the 2018 Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture. In Spring of 2020, she led the joint urban design and landscape studio Taishan: Designing the Rural Cosmopolis in China at Harvard Graduate School of Design. Elaine is a recipient of the SCUT Foreign Lecturer Grant for her project Incremental Urbanism, which was exhibited at the 2019 Seoul Biennale of Architecture & Urbanism.