PLACE IDENTITY AND CREATIVE DISTRICT REGENERATION: THE CASE OF 798 IN BEIJING AND M50 IN SHANGHAI ART ZONES

Abstract

The history of a place, and in particular its historic urban fabric and heritage, constitutes  - together with the development of suitable policies - an important element in determining the future of that part of the city and its renewal.

At the same time, recognising the value of place identity as a fundamental component of heritage and in implementing urban change serves as a reference point both in terms of society’s wishes and in safeguarding and constructing the sustainable urban image.  Built heritage narratives facilitate the creation and enhancement of national identities by ‘denoting particular places as centres of collective cultural consciousness’. Cities have to find out how to reduce the risks inherent in the tendency of contemporary urban societies to fall back on their heritage and historical roots as they face up to an identity crisis. In this respect, innovation in urban space design represents an opportunity to construct an identity of places and give a no globalized scope to the urban form of contemporary cities. The industry of culture covers a huge set of activities fundamental to launch a country’s economy, nonetheless it is important to consider that the most successful urban regeneration projects are those where there is a strong involvement of local pre-existing identity and where history recovery of the sense of place and belonging to the local community is expected.

Starting from this premises, aim of the paper is to illustrate the process of regeneration which is interesting two creative sites in China: 798 district in Beijing and M50 in Shanghai. These districts have in common the transformation of old industry in creative park. Due to the increasing economic growth, which is interesting many Chinese cities, the risk is the globalization of the process of regeneration and the lost of place identity. As regards, the paper will identify strengths and weakness of these operations and possible interventions of sustainable enhancement of heritage and place identity.