Cover; Half Title; Title Page; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; List of Figures; Acknowledgements; 1. Introduction; 2. Shanghai History; 3. Typogenesis; 4. Architecture; 5. Social life; 6. Cultural life: Film and literature; 7. What Future for the Shanghai Alleyway House?; Appendix 1: Chinese Philosophy and Religion; Appendix 2: Michel Foucault and Post-Structuralism; Notes; Bibliography; Filmography; Index
Summary
As a nineteenth-century commercial development, the alleyway house was a hybrid of the traditional Chinese courtyard house and the Western terraced one. Unique to Shanghai, the alleyway house was a space where the blurring of the boundaries of public and private life created a vibrant social community. In recent years however, the city's rapid redevelopment has meant that the alleyway house is being destroyed, and this book seeks to understand it in terms of the lifestyle it engendered for those who called it home, whilst also looking to the future of the alleyway house.<P