THE CHINESE DREAM
a society under construction
Book Launch – lecture evening
October 8, 2008
Doors open: 19:30 Start programme: 20:00, admission free
Panel: Wouter Vanstiphout, Adrian Hornsby, Martijn de Waal, Neville Mars.
Moderated by Cambridge energy specialist and urban criticaster Louis Coulomb.
On the occasion of the Dutch book launch of The Chinese Dream a society under construction (010 Publishers) V2_ will host a lecture evening that aims to connect the dots between China’s social, urban and economic transformations. Three authors of The Chinese Dream will focus on new cities in China as a common indicator of a radically new society under construction.
Architect and theorist Neville Mars, writer and economic journalist Adrian Hornsby and media researcher Martijn de Waal present ‘Triptych on China – Power, Progress and Prosperity’.
In the second part, Annuska Pronkhorst from Crimson Architectural Historians will introduce their upcoming China research project ‘New Towns’ and Wouter Vanstiphout will participate in the panel discussion.
The explosive process of urban developments in China, and the social, economic, and cultural context in which these take place, inspired Neville Mars (an architect from Amsterdam) to move to China in 2005 to do research there. To this end, he founded the ‘Dynamic City Foundation’, where architects, designers and sociologists from China and other countries collaborate.
The results of this collaboration have been documented in the book The Chinese Dream – a society under construction, mapping China’s urbanisation and emerging society. Starting off with an extrapolation of expected trends, the book then presents a wide range of proposals and plans to outline a more sustainable future.