This book provides a detailed historical and design analysis of the development of parks and modern landscape architecture in late 20th century China. It questions whether the fusion of international influences with the local Chinese design vocabulary in late 20th century China has created a distinctive and novel approach to the design of public parks. Hybrid Modernity proposes a new theory for examining the design of public parks built in post-Mao China since the reforms and sets the various processes for China’s late 20th century socio-cultural context. Drawing on modernization theory, research on China’s modernity, local and global cultural trends, it illustrates through a range of case studies ways hybrid modernity defines a new design genre and language for the spatial forms of parks that emerged in China’s secondary cities. Featured case studies include the Living Water Park in Chengdu, Sichuan province, Zhongshan Shipyard Park in Guangdong Province, Jinji Lake Landscape Master Plan in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, and the West Lake Southern Scenic Area Master Plan in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. This book argues that these forms represent a new stage in China’s history of landscape architecture. The work reveals that as a new profession, landscape architecture has greatly contributed to China’s massive urban experiment. This book is an ideal read for students enrolled in landscape architecture, architecture, fine arts and urban planning programs who are engaged in learning the arts and international design education.

A look at how the 1931 International Colonial Exposition in Paris created hybrids of French and colonial culture.

Examines the threats to Latin American cultural identity in a global marketplace - now with a new introduction!

Hybrids of Modernity considers the relationship between three western modernist institutions: anthropology, the nation state and the universal exhibition. It looks at the ways in which these institutions are linked, in how they are engaged in the objectification of culture, and in how they have themselves become objects of cultural theory, the targets of critics who claim that despite their continuing visibility these are all institutions with questionable viability in the late 20th century. Through analysis of the Universal Exhibition held in seville in 1992, the themes of culture, nationality and technology are explored. Particular attention is paid to how "culture" is produced and put to work by the national and corporate participants, and to the relationship between the emergence of culture as commodity and the way in which the concept is employed in contemporary cultural theory.

French sociologist and philosopher, Bruno Latour, is one of the most significant and creative thinkers of the last decades. Bruno Latour: Hybrid Thoughts in a Hybrid World is the first comprehensive and accessible English-language introduction to this multi-faceted work. The book focuses on core Latourian themes: • contribution to science studies (STS – Science, Technology & Society) • philosophical approach to the rise and fall of modernity • innovative thoughts on politics, nature, and ecology • contribution to the branch of sociology known as ANT – Actor-Network Theory. With ANT, Latour has pioneered an approach to socio-cultural analysis built on the notion that social life arises in complex networks of actants – people, things, ideas, norms, technologies, and so on – influencing each other in dynamic ways. This book explores how Latour helps us make sense of the changing interrelations of science, technology, society, nature, and politics beyond modernity.

Traditions not quite past and modernity not yet wholly present make a curious hybrid of Latin American culture. In this thought-provoking book, a leading Mexican intellectual explores the theoretical and practical challenges presented by such a hybrid state. In particular, Néstor García Canclini questions whether Latin America can move toward democracy and compete in a global marketplace without giving in to temptations of elitism or losing its cultural identity.