“The cities of China are currently in a state of tremendous flux. A whirlwind of modernization is destroying centuries-old traditions and urban structures, replacing them by a new urban substance determined by the unparalleled intensity of economic production and economic laws.

Rem Koolhaas describes the current urban development in China as “PhotoShop urbanism” – the combination of everything with everything else. He observes the free manipulation of the urban substance, regardless of all the inhibitions that traditionally organize architectural and public space. These are the same traditions that we are gradually shaking off here in Europe – in the West – as is indicated by our increasing privatization of the public domain. But what does the Chinese experience have to tell us? Are new, unanticipated possibilities for the public space emerging? In the view of Rem Koolhaas, we cannot expect any revolutionary, new ideas from the West; for that, you have to be in China. Does this mean that there are no parallels to be drawn between the present situation in China and the crisis of public space in the West? If there are, can we learn from the Chinese developments how to cope with the public domain in an ever more strongly commercialized urbanism?”

(from here)