The ‘essence–function’ of China’s earliest modern urban imaginary: the nationalist planning of Greater Shanghai, 1927–1949

Shanghai is China’s gateway to modernity and modern planning. The city’s birth opened the first chapter of modern China; modern planning first entered China in and via Shanghai. In this article, I investigate China’s earliest modern urban imaginary by analysing two signature plans for Greater Shanghai during 1927–1949. These plans were pioneers of modern planning imported from the West into China; they were also nationalist planning efforts to build a new city and a new nation when both Shanghai and China were transitioning from pre-modernity to modernity. I employ the traditional Chinese philosophy of ‘essence–function’ (ti–yong) to unravel several relationalities that hinge on the construct of ‘nationalist planning’ – China and West; nation building and city making; modernity and modern planning. These relationalities were interwoven in the initiation, making, and (un)fulfilment of these plans. Despite the explicit ‘function’ (yong) of ‘Westernness’ in these plans, the ‘essence’ (ti) of the plans was ‘Chineseness’: the urban imaginary expressed in them was essentially about ‘Chinesizing’ modern planning in approach, goal, and aspiration. These findings refresh an understanding of the genesis of modern planning in China and offer an alternative reading of modern planning diffusion by showcasing that it was also a process involving local and nationalist fusion.