Shanghai in Transit

This slideshow is part of: Master of Architecture II Fall 2009

Shanghai in Transit: Perceiving the Metropolis

Mark Faulkner

The cityscape of Shanghai developed relatively informally from its creation as a market town into a dispersed fabric of high-rise and low-rise housing. Its illogical organization produces a chaotic reading of the city. By looking back to Zhang Zeduan’s 12th Century painting “Life along the River on the Eve of the Qing Ming Festival,” this project traces the initial act that created Shanghai, its resonance in the current city and how that is perceived by means of the transit system.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.