HOU Li (Tongji University)

The talk will trace the activities of Soviet planners in Beijing and Shanghai and the debates in the 1950s between Soviet and Chinese planners over the two cities’ spatial strategies. After the rupture in the Sino-Soviet relationship, there were intentional deviations from the Soviet planning model in both cities toward the end of the 1950s. Comparatively speaking, the Soviet planners left a stronger legacy in Beijing in terms of spatial layout and the street grid system, but differences between the two cities were primarily the product of practical, rather than ideological, causes. Taking city planning as a combination of social, political, economic and spatial practices that are brought together by a particular set of people and agents and thus evolves with local conditions, this research seeks to add nuance to our understanding of the “Soviet influence” over Chinese urban planning system during and beyond the 1950s.