Spatial Reconfigurations of Beijing: Transnational Architecture, Avant-Garde Art, and Local Documentary Practice

Beijing undergoes another round of massive urban construction and destruction in the preparation for the 2008 Olympic Games. This essay focuses on two interrelated facets of this process of urban restructuring the erection of public monuments as symbols of China's globalization, modernization, and progress on the one hand, and the dislocation of local Beijing residents in order to clean up the city on the other. I examine the city's spatial transformation in three areas: public monuments, avant-garde art, and local documentary practice.