Memory Reconfiguration and Glocalization of Cultural Landscape—Taking the 90th Anniversary Promotion Project for Zhongshan Park (Xiamen, China) as a case

Keywords: glocalization, cultural landscape heritage, collective memory, identity
Session Type: Virtual Paper
Day: Saturday
Session Start / End Time: 4/10/2021 09:35 AM (Pacific Time (US & Canada)) - 4/10/2021 10:50 AM (Pacific Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 17

Abstract

Zhongshan Park is the most numerous parks with the same name in the world, which is built in honor of Sun Yat-sen, the forerunner of China's democratic revolution. Today, there are more than 90 Zhongshan parks all over the world, which are transcend the value of the park itself and serve as a bridge between the past, the present and the future. They draw on foreign garden art, incorporate traditional Chinese garden elements, and merge the regional characteristics. Glocalization is the interaction and fusion of globalization and localization. Globalization may erode local diversity while improving economy and society. Balancing the relationship between globalization and localization is the key to enhancing social identity and maintaining multiculturalism and soul of cities. As one of the windows of the reform and opening-up in China, Xiamen has been deeply influenced by globalization, which led to the reductions of historical circumstances in Zhongshan Park. This paper studies how the 90th anniversary promotion project of Zhongshan Park organically combines three carriers: physical elements (architectural, sculpture, etc.), park space, and hidden event information (rituals, historical stories) to coupling the global and local relationships. The combination includes the nesting of different styles of landscape elements, the occlusion of partial differences in landscape, the collage of features under the principle of balance, and the narrative display of local culture. This paper points out that it is an effective way to balance the global and local information of landscape space by constructing identity through narrative and collective memory.