LIVERPOOL @ SHANGHAI, The waterfront as a brandscape in Liverpool Waters case study
<p>Liverpool was an important maritime since the 18<sup>th</sup> century. In the 20<sup>th</sup> century this economic model declined and the waterfront started shrinking, eroding the core centre of the city. Since then Liverpool administration started stimulating new i...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Università di Napoli Federico II
2014-01-01
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| Series: | TRIA : Territorio della Ricerca su Insediamenti e Ambiente |
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| Online Access: | http://www.tria.unina.it/index.php/tria/article/view/2046 |
| Summary: | <p>Liverpool was an important maritime since the 18<sup>th</sup> century. In the 20<sup>th</sup> century this economic model declined and the waterfront started shrinking, eroding the core centre of the city. Since then Liverpool administration started stimulating new investments: the symbolic marine backgrounds, <em>central</em><em> </em><em>places </em>for the <em>city </em><em></em><em>of productio</em><em>n</em>, were turned into <em>city of consumption</em> benchmarks<em>.</em> </p><p>Transforming into a <em>brandscape</em> the old waterscape perspective, Liverpool creates a twin-city relationship with Shanghai (China), trying to attract new investors from China to accelerate the regeneration. With the "One city, Nine towns" plan (2001), Shanghai provided itself of a branding strategy and of an efficacious urban planning perspective all at one time, using well-known European styles to realize its expansion areas along the waterfront.</p><p>Working on this model, Liverpool Waters proposal re-designs the waterfront skyline in a Shanghai style, with disproportionate towers, refusing the city waterscape heritage, listed as World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The main landmark of the area, a skyscraper called Shanghai Tower, is not an attempt to embody Shanghai culture or urban environment, but rather to line up to its lifestyle and social-economic conditions, to put the city onto the global market with a positive etiquette.</p><p>The overall proposal establishes a generic relation with water, neglecting Liverpool marine heritage, moving the attention from the old waterscape (with its core in the historic Pier Head) to a new town brandscape. The entire city dematerializes itself on the back of the proposed new picture.</p><p>The paper tries to evaluate the parallelism in this approach to branding strategies and related regeneration actions, according also to an analytical verification through a project: the proposal for a new tower in Shanghai waterfront to create a balance between the proposition of a successful, vibrant brandscape and the respect of geographical and historical factors.</p> |
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| ISSN: | 1974-6849 2281-4574 |