Città e memoria nella Cina contemporanea

The quick growth of Chinese cities in the last decades had attracted the attention of many Europeans. Yet, although they contributed as architects and planners in the development of many Chinese cities, the knowledge of Chinese urban reality in its historic perspective is effectively very elementary. More specifically are almost totally lacking works on comparative urban history, while the concepts of urban conservation have just started to be recognised in Chinese town planning policies and culture. However, the consequences, due to the demolitions of whole districts of traditional residential areas (hutong), both on a social and architectural-urban level have become by now evident as real problems that have to be tackled by local town planning administrators. The project report focuses and discussses the issues relevant to the hutong conservation in the more general context of the urban history of Chinese cities.