Hybrid Modernity: The Public Park in Late 20th Century China

"Mary Padua has authoritatively chronicled the growth of the landscape architecture profession in China over several decades. This volume frames recent landscapes within a framework of China's rich legacy of gardens and cultural landscapes. Eminently, it collects her valuable insights on seminal projects and persons who have shaped landscape investigations of China's rich history, culture, and ecology within the context of globalization, urbanization, and international design. Ron Henderson, Director of the Landscape Architecture and Urbanism Program at Illinois Institute of Technology "A plethora of scholarship on China’s urban architecture and built environment has charted the heat of the nation’s urban construction since Deng’s reforms opened it to the world. Dr. Mary Padua's book supplements this work with her in-depth investigation of public parks in China’s late 20th century. The arts and garden tradition since its ancient beginnings, Zhongshan lexicon for the modern park and nation-building in the Republic period, places for workers in Mao's era and international influences all pave the way to the public park in post-Mao China – an epochal quest for modern urban life. Rather than examining China’s major cities like Beijing and Shanghai, the author keenly focuses on cases in the secondary cities, places of innovation and potential for China’s hopes in the years ahead." Dr. Charlie Xue, author of Building a Revolution: Chinese architecture since 1980, A history of design institutes in China: from Mao to market and Grand theater urbanism – Chinese cities in the 21st century. "Hybrid Modernity imparts valuable insights on the creation of urban public parks in late 20th Century China and envisions new directions emerging in the 21st Century. Offering a new theoretical framework, Padua’s perceptive analyses confirm the innovative contributions of major park development projects and their impact on shaping public urban spaces in China’s rapidly developing cities." Linda Corkery, Professor of Landscape Architecture, UNSW Sydney, Australia