Product info

<p/><br></br><p><b> About the Book </b></p></br></br><i>The Real Fake</i> explores how the users of Thames Town--an English-like village built in Songjiang New Town near Shanghai--negotiate the notion of authenticity through their everyday social and spatial practices. Piazzoni argues that authenticity underlies the social and physical production of space through both top-down and bottom-up dynamics.<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br>Thames Town--an English-like village built in Shanghai--is many places at once: a successful tourist destination, an affluent residential cluster, a city of migrant workers, and a ghost town. <i>The Real Fake </i>explores how the users of Thames Town transform a themed space into something more than a "fake place." Piazzoni understands authenticity as a dynamic relationship between people, places, and meanings that enables urban transformations. She argues that authenticity underlies the social and physical production of space through both top-down and bottom-up dynamics. The systems of moral and aesthetic judgments that people associate with "the authentic" materialize in Thames Town. Authenticity excludes some users as it inhibits access and usage especially to the migrant poor. And yet, ideas of the authentic also encourage everyday spontaneous appropriations of space that break the village's staged atmosphere. Most scholars criticize theming by arguing that it produces a "fake," controlling city. Piazzoni complicates this view by demonstrating that although the exclusionary character of theming remains unquestionable, it is precisely the experience of "fakeness" that allows Thames Town's users to develop a sense of place. Authenticity, the ways people construct and spatialize its meanings, intervenes holistically in the making and remaking of space.<p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>In the case of Thames Town--a Shanghai suburb built to imitate the look and feel of a British village, combining the elements of a real estate investment opportunity and a popular tourist destination--Piazzoni finds the transplanted spirit of the original assuming an intriguing and puzzling form... <i>The Real Fake</i> leaves you with the sense that the resemblance goes deeper than surface appearances. It may embody more of Western reality--more of the strains on tradition and the unevenness of progress--than the designers anticipated.-- "Inside Higher Ed"<br><p/><br></br><p><b> About the Author </b></p></br></br>Maria Francesca Piazzoni is an Architect and a Ph.D. Candidate at USC, Price School of Public Policy. She holds a Ph.D. in Architecture and Urbanism from IUAV, University of Venice.

Price History