The Modern Shanghai's Urban Space Narrative

City is an architectural text,it is also a exist space,which embodied the society characteristical that the urban transition from traditional to modern.With the changes in the structure of urban spatial,urban residents would change the way of spatial experience.New space means that new social relationship.The citizens would make their inner geography world synchronous to the external space of the world.Meanwhile their geographical imagination will also changed.Therefore,the space is key factor to interpreting a city,then understand the space is one of the methods of study the urban modernity.Modern Shanghai is one existing forms of complex social space,analysis the geospatial,architecture structure is an effective way for understanding the modernity of Shanghai literature.This dissertation tries to link the production of modern urban space with modernity,study the spatial pattern of Shanghai Settlement and the residential of Shanghai modern society.This dissertation focuses on three local-style dwelling houses-villa,apartment,Shikumen(Pavilion),and correspond to a group of writers,adopt the text reading as research methods,by analyzing the walking roadmap of the characters in the novel,then map the unique landscape of the location movement.Street,building is not objective or static space,which itself is also the symbol of cultural order.By contrast the internal space of the text with the external physical space,recourse the location,border areas in the text,which including the buildings,streets,shopping centers,cinemas,dance halls etc.then analysis the spatial topography which in order to discover social factors of the power,cultural psychology,and the identity recognition.The discrepancy of living space between the writers,influence the encoding of the space form in the text,which then translated the spatial difference into the novel practice,and produced the divergence urban sense of characters.Adopt this research method,there are four main chapters in this dissertation,with introduction and conclusion.Introduction is mainly analysis the domestic and foreign research status,that inspect other subjects.Shanghai Literature studies showing a complex state of research,the main direction from two levels of "cultural studies" and "Shanghai Literature",these research involve history,anthropology,sociology,and of Shanghai Literature research is city study,about the influence of the development of modern Shanghai after opening the Settlement to the literature.This research overflows the scope of the traditional literature research,and become cultural studies which involving the modern media,transportation tools,literary education,and remuneration system,that of literature surrounding.This research is close to the Settlement history study.Overseas Shanghai Research put Shanghai into the context of globalization,analysis the significance of the urban development of modern Shanghai to the international narrative,from the aspects of politics,geography,trade,etc.Overseas research has a great influence on the domestic Shanghai research,inspiring and promoting the domestic literature and cultural studies.Through the combing of the domestic and overseas research,can be found that the research attach much important to the time dimension,however,there are few monographs focus on the geospatial.This dissertation attempts to analysis the writer living space with text imagination space,combined with space theory of text criticism,in order to find the spatial dimension that basic on the time dimension of modern literary studies,to provide a new possibility for the Shanghai urban Culture Study.Chapter One,analysis the formation of the Shanghai settlement space and the morphology of modern urban culture.By analyzing the two settlement space-the formation of the British and American concessions which merged as International Settlement and the French Settlement,and semi-colonial society between them.These two settlements tried to expand their concession area by building roads of the cross-border.The ideology of the was the International Settlement commercialism which leading by consume and entertainment.In the International Settlement there were appeared a large number public spaces,such as the race club,four major department stores,dance halls,hotels,and Bund buildings.In addition,the form of private residential was the high-rise apartments.While the French Settlement was paid great attention to the concession construction with the architecture style and building materials,and the urban planning style was completely different from the International Settlement which generated a quiet,elegant,livable,casual atmosphere.There were many public spaces,such as coffeehouse,salon,cinemas,etc.So these public spaces became the places that the petty bourgeoisie and intellectuals frequently been.The villas in the Western expansion zone of the French Concession notably represent the concession style.These iconic architectures once produced,the space segment is put up,then shaping the class distinction.The development of the Shanghai Settlement space was synchronous with the local residents.As a modern city who prosperous with the concessions,the cultural context of the concession was profound impact on the character of the city and the cultural personality which prevalence the mercantilism and hedonism.And then this dissertation analyze the overall situation of urban public and living space in modern Shanghai concession,its architectural style reflects the semi-colonial nature of modern Shanghai.Chapter Two,analyzes the villa writer of French settlement Mu Shiying's Shanghai landscape.The place of birth of Mu Shiying was Danshui road,which was the West area of French Concession.By examining the building requirements that set by French Bureau and the ideology behind Mu's single-family villa,named Mu Shiying as villa writer.In his early works of semi-left-wing,showing a outsiders' marginalized urban landscape.The spatial referent in the teahouse,theaters,mansion,and the characters walking outside the places of city recreation.The text visualization of the street and architectural in Shanghai by the way of figure's walking.Here the landscape is external to the presence of the characters,which resulting in the hardened sense of space in the text,and has not yet formed in Shanghai sense.In subsequent new sense works,Mu Shiying not only found the more suitable expression style,but also gradually enhanced the sense of space in the text.By the sensual aesthetic modernity in Shanghai to reproduce urban space,the space is intrinsic the character consciousness.The text is converted the space to cafes,dance hall,hotel,the characters showing a comfortable and suitable to urban life style,as part of participation in the urban space.In the new sense works the Shanghai map is the local urban landscape,the internal space in the text is isomorphic to the author's reality space,the text is the the author's city.Chapter Three,discusses the Apartment writer Eileen Chang's Shanghai daily Space.The Eddington Apartment which was construction on Yuyuan's site,was located in the busiest section of International Settlement.Its modernist architectural style.small size design,was suitable for small-scale nuclear family to live,which can the maintain the independence of the living space.Eileen Chang who was escaped from old mansion and choose to live in the modern apartment,found that the apartment living form is fit her independent character.By combing the Shanghai topography of works which were written in the Eddington apartment,the space in the novels that concern on the modern marriage is mainly personal inner chamber.Regardless of the text presented the apartment with modern metaphor or the stagnate of the mansion space,the space is performance the inner space pattern,while the external public space just as vague narrative background with no exact location.The dispersion of the external space weakens the history interventional of the text narrative.In the closed loop interior space,the character's space sense eliminate in the time.Chapter Four,analysis the garret writer's left-wing space.Social production generates areas separate in urban,and results in non-same development of geospatial.Modern Shanghai was also showing a non-balanced geographical distribution.Production sites,consumption shopping malls,and even residence make the space segment.Beside the villa,apartment,there was a special living form——Pavilion in modern Shanghai's residential buildings.The pavilion was the shelter of a group of left-wing writers who embraced the revolutionary ideals.The left-wing writers,such as Jiang Guangci,Ding Ling,etc.who seeking the modernity of urban experience,in their works was full of utopia radical color,narrative great Shanghai in their narrow living space,which full of romantic passion.The compression of internal physical space and the booming external communication space constitute a kind of tension,attracted the garret writers carry out literature and social activities in the marginalized space in Shanghai,permeated with "Bohemia" temperament.By the time when the revolution time was ripe,Ding Ling,etc.Left-wing writers leave the small living room in Shanghai,toward to the revolution center of Yan'an.The pavilion writers mainly came from other provinces,arrived in Shanghai,then leave Shanghai to Yan'an,between the come and go,they complete the deep space transformation from the edge to the center.Conclusion section summarizes the writers of three types residence architectural-villa,apartment,pavilion,in their texts the landscape of Shanghai is showing the differences,and also the characters' roadmap is not the same,which constitute the mobile places that showing the situation of imagine world superimposed to the real world.By discuss the geography of reality world and the internal space of the text,we can find that the modern urban landscape in the texts is associated with history and memory.The spatial geographic description is not default by the authors,but the spatial narrative which associated with cultural psychological and identity.That the literary works are not only products of the space,but also involved in the production of social space.