Shanghai's sense for spectacle
I got a lot of feedback from last week’s piece on the Shanghai Expo; mostly from people (many of them architects and landscape architects) who were considering a trip to the expo. For them and others still mulling the idea, I have more pictures and more insights into the expo and the city that is hosting it.
The theme of the expo is “Better City, Better Life.” This may as well be the slogan of future Philippine politicians. We are a country that is already more urbanized than rural, and this reality will just continue. In future elections, (which, by the way, is just two days away for us) we should expect candidates with solid major platforms for urban development.
Urban matters are highlighted in Shanghai and its fantastic expo. Yes, there are some problems right now as organizers tweak operations to rationalize clearance checks. When we were there, it took an hour just to get in. Authorities promise to fix this problem in the next few weeks.
The problem is because security is tight and the procedures are as stringent as for airports, with body checks and hi-tech scanning machines. I suggested to our Chinese hosts that they should have just outsourced the security to Philippine agencies, who could ship over thousands of our trusty blue-clad CQs (security guards). I told the Chinese that our guards do not need any hi-tech equipment, just one small plain wooden stick (or half a chopstick pair)!
For those visiting the expo, I suggest all the main theme pavilions, which focus on city planning, landscape architecture and urban design (I will explain these three necessary fields of design in future articles).
The first one I went into celebrated City Plazas. The entry experience is a huge cavernous space, which replicated that of a classic train station. On display were trains from each era of the technology — from iron horses powered by steam to today’s maglev wonders. I did try Shanghai’s magnetic-levitation train from Pudong to the airport. It travels at over 250 kilometers an hour, which means if we had one, it could take travelers from Manila to Los Baños in five minutes or to the base of Baguio’s zigzag Kennon Road in about 45 minutes.
Almost all other pavilions, including country and corporate pavilions in the expo, latched on to the urban theme. Many decked their facades and ever roofs with planting and all sorts of vertical and elevated landscapes. This would be of interest to designers and developers, many of who are trying to get on the “green” bandwagon.
I will also write soon about all these “green-ness,” green roofs, and initiatives such as LEEDs, all of which needs to be demystified. Filipino landscape architects will find all this old hat (even the supposed new green stuff in the expo) since we’ve been doing this greening, and green roof thing for decades, albeit not at the scale seen today because it is expensive and “green” was not fashionable then.
But green, the Shanghai Expo is. One does have to note, however, that Shanghai is a temperate site compared to the Philippines’ tropical situation. They are just in late spring and the landscapes designed by their landscape architects will come to full bloom only in a few weeks time.
The landscapes and urban design of the expo are actually complete and “instant.” Full-grown trees and complete parks and open spaces with amenities have been put in. These are not temporary settings but permanent sites and green infrastructure for the expo site, which will eventually become a full-fledged new district for the metropolis of Shanghai. The Shanghai government spent a reported $55 billion on “regional and city” infrastructure to support the expo and to service the future district.
These people put their money where their mouth is. We also toured the city and not just the expo. I’ve been there before but I’ve always envied the way they develop large parks and pockets of green as they expand the city. Their sidewalks are also up to five times the average with of our Manila ones.
The urban design and landscape architecture of the whole Shanghai metropolis and the expo) are coordinated. No distracting changes in color schemes are seen as one travels from district to district. Traffic signs, street lights, street trees and street furniture are coordinated in terms of spacing and design… and they all work and are maintained constantly. They do not have dark patches of road, billboard-blighted roadsides, off-street parking, ambulant vendors, spaghetti wiring or the filth that defines most of Metro Manila’s streets.
There is much to learn from Shanghai, both the metropolis and its huge world exposition. It’s not just the aesthetics, greening or urban design. It is also the fact that the metropolis is governed as a whole, by one metropolitan authority, which is why it works. The biggest lesson from Shanghai is that Metro Manila should be governed similarly. If it is not then our beloved Metro Manila will never be able to correct its increasing urban ills, much less aspire to host even a regional fair.
A Manila Expo will have to wait until the metropolis gets it act together, or if next week’s winning candidates enact a law to restructure all our major metropolises into singularly-governed bodies. We have to prepare for the near future when our megacities become as great or greater than even provinces in terms of their importance to the national economy. That future needs to address key urban issues now — housing, peace and order, environmental sustainability and (it needs to be said) population — otherwise, not even an expo can save us.
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Feedback is welcome. Please e-mail the writer at paulo.alcazaren@gmail.com.
