Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
ignore the bloody history of invasion in favor of the sanitized and surreal
landscape of suburbia. But I suggest another cultural “invasion” is at play
under the Nordic helmets.
looking for pu jiang
If An Ting is the “Mercedes Benz” of the nine towns, and Luo Dian the Scan-
dinavian sex-ski lodge, I suppose Pu Jiang aims to be the Versace (Fiat,
Vespa?) of the bunch. Pu Jiang is the closest of the nine towns to downtown
Shanghai and is supposed to hold eighty thousand residents and cost about
fi ve billion yuan to build.
55
Pu Jiang Town was developed by Shanghai High
Power Investment OCT Corporation.
56
According to a luxury property sales
brochure I collected (accompanied by gorgeous photographs for “Città de
Pujiang”), the project “re-imagines the traditional positioning of the court-
yard and villa structure, and the villa's light-fi lled sunken family room,
ground fl oor living room and bedroom all enjoy fantastic views of the court-
yard through elegant French windows.”
We spent an hour looking at diff erent real estate developments in the
area without successfully fi nding Pu Jiang, until we found some elderly vol-
unteers in orange vests, passing the time at a bus stop at nine on a Sunday
morning, who fi nally pointed us in the right direction. We kept on expecting
an Italian look, which my traveling companion imagined as something like
Roman ruins. When we fi nally got to the Venice Bank and the advertisement
contrasting two ancient doors, one medieval European, the other traditional
Chinese, we fi nally found what we were looking for.
What buildings we did fi nd looked more modern than classical, a result
of the architect's more conceptual approach to the design. h is approach to
“Italian” design is expressed “in the interaction with the environmental
conditions, intended as both natural elements and area conformation.” h e
area, still dotted with agricultural land uses, is crisscrossed by water, invok-
ing the Venetian urban waterscape. According to the designers, “h
e system
