Chaotic Identities in Chinese Commercial Streets

Abstract: The overall background is the Chinese metropolises like Shanghai and Beijing trying to become part of the modern ones with global and multicultural identities like New York, Tokyo, and London. In the craze for western styles many cities have lose their local cultures, especially notable in the commercial districts of Chinese cities where various themes such as Italian, Russian, and complex styles have become more and more common. In terms of domestic cases, small cities incline to become big cities or well-developed parallel cities and attempt to be urbanized, cultural, and attractive for investors. As a consequence, a mass of pseudo-classic buildings have been or being constructed under the banner of traditional culture. It is a common phenomenon that commercial streets share similar faces and disordered identities in the cities of contemporary China. This thesis investigates why these problems emerged from different aspects - place identity, urban branding, producing and coping spaces from capital perspectives and specific conditions in China. In light of the theoretical study the thesis analyze the findings the case studies of commercial streets in Nanjing and Shanghai in order to find out how the chaotic identities are expressed and what causes to the admiration of western styles are to be found. It also seeks evidence of the rationality of Neo-Chinese style, a new style occurred mostly in residential projects reflecting traditional cultures, and indicates problems that appear during the progress of Neo-Chinese style exploration. The aim of this paper is to give a deeper understanding of the chaotic identities in Chinese commercial streets, and to seek for solutions to the issue.