Cities that produce only underwear, blue jeans and extras in domestic films are among the fascinating objects of study in Typological Drift: Emerging Cities in China by Shiqiao Li and Esther Lorenz. Journey with Unfrozen and Shiqiao Li to reveal the surprising urban realities of China that escape normative urban theories, with several stops along the way in philosophy and linguistics.

Typological Drift: Emerging Cities in China by Shiqiao Li and Esther Lorenz

Interviewee: Shiqiao Li is Weedon Professor in Asian Architecture, School of Architecture, University of Virginia, where he teaches history, theory, and design of architecture, and directs PhD in the Constructed Environment Program. He is author of Understanding the Chinese City (2014), Architecture and Modernization (2009, in Chinese) and Power and Virtue, Architecture and Intellectual Change in England 1650-1730 (2006). He recently contributed an essay to the Routledge Handbook of Chinese Architecture (2022).

Inro/Outro: “Drifted” by Groove Armada

Discussed:

Drift Triggers

Ten Thousand Things

Yiwu International Trade City

Borges: “The map of the empire is the size of the empire itself.”

Figuration

Wilhelm von Humboldt

Francois Jullien: The Silent Transformations

Nanhui New City

Hengdian World Studios

Minmetals Hallstatt

Thames Town

Lujiazui

The Bund

Tongji Architectural Design Group Co. Ltd.