Running between the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, Chang'an Avenue forms an east-west axis that cuts across the capital Beijing and features many of the most symbolic and significant architectural works of modern China. Shuishan Yu combines the approaches of urban, cultural, and architectural histories to offer a rich analysis of the planning and construction of the avenue and its most definitive spaces and structures. This approach offers an effective lens for understanding the changing roles of socialist ideology, artistic creation, nationalism, and globalization in modernization in China. Yu argues that while PRC planners and architects waged heated battles over specific concepts, their underlying assumptions equating modernity with “modernization” ensured that the modern project was never considered complete. Just as planning on Chang'an Avenue constantly attempted to “fill in the gaps” created by earlier rounds of construction, China seemed perpetually to be catching up to changing definitions of being modern....

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