Open AccessBricks in the Shanghai Landscape: Revealing the City’s Shifting Identities
Author(s) -
Tina Kanagaratnam
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
śląskie studia polonistyczne
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2353-0928
pISSN - 2084-0772
DOI - 10.31261/ssp.2021.18.02
Subject(s) - brick , parallels , context (archaeology) , interpretation (philosophy) , identity (music) , selection (genetic algorithm) , politics , sociology , aesthetics , history , geography , archaeology , political science , engineering , art , law , computer science , linguistics , philosophy , operations management , artificial intelligence
This paper considers the parallels between the changes in Shanghai’s brick usage through history and the city’s shifting identities. Taking a new angle on studies of the Chinese wall, the author looks at the most basic element of the wall – the brick – in the context of Shanghai’s social and political history and postcolonial theory and proposes that it was the changes in the city’s identity, precipitated by both internal and external forces, that have ultimately driven the selection and subsequent interpretation of brick types during different periods of history. This paper also considers how brick usage is employed today to reinterpret history and define heritage.