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Making urban memory visible: the on-screen transformation of Beijing’s hutong districts during modernization (1940s–2010s)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Yiqiao Sun Open the ORCID record for Yiqiao Sun [Opens in a new window]
Yiqiao Sun*
Affiliation:
Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
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Email: yiqiao9405@163.com
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Abstract

As a vernacular dwelling form, the historical hutong districts in Beijing have represented local people’s traditional ways of living and thinking. However, in recent decades, such urban memories have dissipated as the old cityscape has gradually been overwritten by modernist, international-style designs. To ensure that locality and identity are not forgotten, this article examines the potential role of fiction films as a form of digital ‘lieux de mémoire’ (sites of memory), which not only archives but also evokes nostalgia for memories lost in urban transition. This interdisciplinary study rereads the extensive modernist transformation of Beijing’s historical hutong area through the lens of film (1940s–2010s), and thus brings a humanized, historical insight into this vernacular cityscape by focusing on reviving and strengthening the fading urban qualities.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , First View , pp. 1 - 19
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press

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