Milan Design Week
Milan was the city chosen to present the first of the lectures about Chinese urbanisation presenting the book A Map of Hutopolis.
The lecture was organised at the Spazio Tecno at the Caselli di Porta Garibaldi in Milan (Italy) during the Design Week.
The Milanese event of the series outlined the current status of the Chinese urbanisation’s process, showcased urban re-appropriation phenomena happening in Guangdong as well as the dichotomy between ancient city and modernity in Beijing to then outline solutions and ideas to the present issues afflicting cities.
Gabriele Battaglia, an Italian journalist based in Beijing, outlined the current status the urbanisation, the classifications of “dushihua” and “chengzhenhua”, and current policies of the Chinese government. Tong Lam, associate professor of History at the University of Toronto, described in his intervention, 'De-signing Urban China', the ability of people to adapt to different environments, illustrating an urban village within the city of Guangzhou. The book 'A map of Hutopolis' was also presented during the event.
Beatrice Leanza (creative director of Beijing Design Week) and Aric Chen (curator of design and architecture at the M+ in Hong Kong) participated in a panel discussion after the lectures together with Prof. Luisa Collina and Prof. Giampiero Bosoni (Politecnico di Milano). The debate focused on the dynamics of urbanisation and the role that the design discipline can play in this context.
