Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
anti-Shanghai. Dongtan is the ecological mirror of the megaskyscraper
landscape that characterizes Shanghai. But the Shanghai Tower and Dongtan
are not as diff erent as their architectural renderings would imply. Both
depend heavily on technical and engineering innovations to deliver not just
environmental benefi ts, but an entirely new experience of the “green future.”
h is focus on “experience” is clear in a seductive storyline and a raptur-
ous vision of Dongtan. When Dongtan was announced, SIIC and Arup copro-
duced a 227-page bilingual, lavishly photographed promotional topic titled
Shanghai Dongtan: An Eco-City.
h is topic, written by Herbert Girardet and
Zhao Yan, literally illustrates the desires of the planners, architects, and
investors regarding the world they hope to create.
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Shanghai Dongtan: An
Eco-City
tells a relatively simple story, one that sets up villainous trends
(pollution and urbanization), their victim (the birds), and the saviors (who
utilize the best that science/technology, architecture, and planning have to
off er). h e opening pages show, on one page, a map of the region (and an
unnamed yellow line running from Shanghai over the water to Chongming,
through the island close to the eastern edge near the Dongtan site, and then
west to the central island, and up to Jiangsu) and, on the facing page, a brief
political history of the project.
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h e aim is to create a “new world,” but
before the new world can be created, the planners and investors must fi rst
pose an important question—what is the problem that Dongtan is supposed
to fi x?
h e topic sets up Dongtan as the “natural” (that is, commonsense)
answer, but ignores a number of unstated questions: What happens when a
city of fi ve hundred thousand is proposed on ecologically sensitive wetlands
where there is no present human population to speak of?
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What happens
when an island like Chongming is connected to the surrounding city and
regions of Shanghai and Jiangsu? How can catastrophic environmental
change be avoided? Rather, the topic answers its own central question for the
client and the planner (and journalists and Western environmentalists): Is it
