New Town,
HD, 6:50 min., sound, no dialogue
New Town shows the discrepancy between the idea and the reality of urban development. The film documents parts of an empty city that have been appropriated by the current inhabitants. These appropriations often do not match the intended functions of the spaces.
The film was shot in Anting New Town, a satellite town of Shanghai. In order to reduce the increasing urban density of Shanghai the former mayor Liangyu Chen invited international architects and urban designers to develop ten themed replica satellite towns in style of their own countries. Most of the new towns were designed as copies of historic European townscapes. Anting New Town however is the attempt by Albert Speer und Partner, a German architecture and urban planning office, to portray a contemporary German City in China.
