* WHAT IF YOU BUILT THE ENTIRE MASS OF WESTERN EUROPE IN 20 YEARS?
* WHAT IF 400 MILLION FARMERS THEN MOVED IN?
* WHAT DRIVES THE GREATEST WAVE OF URBANIZATION IN HUMAN HISTORY?
* WHAT IS THE CHINESE DREAM?

010 Publishers, 2008
250x200mm, 784 pages, full colour, hardcover
ISBN 978 90 6450 652 9
price £42.50 / €49.50

In 2001 China announced a goal to build 400 new cities of 1 million inhabitants each by 2020 — that is, 20 new cities a year for 20 years. The hopes and hazards of dreaming at such a scale are as staggering as the reality already taking shape. The aspirations involved amount to no less than the creation of a new utopia. But is China mortgaging its present for an idealized future? And how does that promised tomorrow relate to the aggressive and relentless building boom of today?

The Chinese Dream presents an arresting vision of a nation in the midst of breakneck transformation. Focused on the urbanization processes driving both economic growth and societal reform, The Chinese Dream is the keenly awaited China-statement from leading international art and architecture publishers 010 (S,M,L,XL, Farmax).

The Chinese Dream is a visual tour de force, encompassing an encyclopaedic wealth of images, data, and creative ideas. Architecture, economics, urban theory and politics all interlock and explode in astonishing detail. Approaches range from statistical attack to floating helium balloons over Beijing, as the authors unpack the paradoxes at the heart of China’s struggle for change, and close in on the dream.

* The Chinese Dream is a unique exploration of the enormous concrete wave reshaping both the landscape and society of China itself.

* Assembled over a four year on-the-ground presence, The Chinese Dream is informed by extensive travel, hands-on project work, and personal stories from across the country.

* Featuring thousands of photographs, sketches and computer graphics — with images from the glitziest megamalls to the gloomiest slums, and from the urban fringe to the mushrooming village — this is space as you have never seen it before: brash, outlandish and very Chinese.

REVIEW QUOTES

“catapults the reader into the extraordinary context of China”
– Architecture Today

“an absorbing encyclopaedic monster of a book ... intended not just to be read, but to be experienced visually, absorbed impressionistically: a barrage of different aesthetics combine to create the sense of something heady, febrile, truly dreamlike. The Chinese Dream manages to encapsulate the essence of the Chinese city not just through its content but in its very form.”
– Icon

“If you have to get your hands on just one book about urban China, make it this one.”
– we-make-money-not-art.com

“from where I sit in the wheat, potash and oil rich northern Canadian prairie, I read this book as a warning”
– Space & Culture

AWARDS

Independent Publisher Awards 2009
Most Outstanding Design, Silver

MORE

Visit the full website for The Chinese Dream and other DCF projects.

Order The Chinese Dream online from 010 Publishers or amazon.

View The Chinese Dream online with Google Books.

Watch the internet tv trailer for The Chinese Dream and Beijing Rising below.