1、004VOLUME 10/ISSUE 4/AUGUST 2022Provincializing Transnational Landscapehttps:/doi.org/10.15302/J-LAF-1-010026EDITED BY Tina TIAN,WANG Ying ABSTRACT Provincializing transnational landscape is attracting increasing attention from international academia with the rise of transnational landscape practice
2、 and the shift of the academic research paradigm.It calls for us to move beyond the national political,economic,social,and cultural boundaries to examine the provincialization mechanisms,processes,and influence of transnational landscape activities.It is particularly important for China to explore t
3、he provincializing transnational landscape.It will contribute to examining Chinas historical local-global interactions over the landscape,and providing a lens of“the Other”to study the regional landscape characteristics in China.Significantly,it will not only deepen the understanding of the developm
4、ent of the research on landscape,cultural,and communication histories in China and beyond,but also promote Chinas transnational economic cooperation frameworks,such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area,to better tell Chinas story and let the world better
5、 understand China.KEYWORDS Transnational Landscape;Provincialization;Research Paradigm;Landscape Representation;ChinaZHANG Yichi*Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art,London,WC1B 3JA,UK*CORRESPONDING AUTHORAddress:Stavangergata 46 A,0467 Oslo,NorwayEmail:RECEIVED DATE 2022-11-05A British arc
6、hitect and I once strolled along Wu Da Dao(Five Great Avenues)in Tianjin,China,a residential area built by British arrivals in the early 20th century.While standing in front of these European-style houses,the architect exclaimed that the area is like an elegant British gentleman but with a Chinese a
7、ccent!Similar feelings of dj vu had also emerged in front of me when I walked on the Liepu Aleja Brvbas bulvris in Riga,Latvia,or the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia,USA.Although these designed landscapes are located in different cities and even countries,their constructions are all under
8、the light of the Avenue des Champs-lyses of Paris,France,and present distinctive localized characteristics.What promotes various landscape factors to be carried across national borders?And how are these landscape factors integrated with local identities and qualities,and thereby generate such variou
9、s representations?Provincializing transnational landscape is drawing increasing attention from international academia.This,on the one hand,benefits from the rapid growth of transnational landscape activities.With the process of globalization,transnational flows of capital exchange,commodities,busine
10、ss communities,and migratory LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE FRONTIERS/EDITORIAL005movements carry landscape ideas,aesthetics,technologies,and materials across national boundaries,interacting with local conditions to promote the landscape evolution and development of the world1.During this process,these land
11、scape elements interplay with political,economic,social,and cultural actors,and thereby making these actors encode into the landscapes and present them in front of the public to promote the development of landscapes.On the other hand,the rise of the topic of localizing transnational landscape result
12、s from the shift of the academic research paradigm.Since Michael Peter Smith published Transnational Urbanism:Locating Globalization1 in 2001,the transnational perspective has emerged in academia.Rather than focusing on the landscape homogenization brought by globalization,this perspective emphasize
13、s the differences and changes produced by the transcendence of cultural,political,and economic borders of nations.Recently,it is even gaining increasing attention.For example,the journal Urban History published a special issue of“Transnational Urbanism in the Americas”2 in 2009,and Davide Ponzini,a
14、professor from Politecnico di Milano,Italy,published the book Transnational Architecture and UrbanismRethinking How Cities Plan,Transform and Learn3 in 2020.Therefore,it calls for us to move beyond the political,economic,social,and cultural boundaries of nations to explore mechanisms,processes,and i
15、nfluence of provincializing transnational landscape,contributing to developing practices and theories of landscape architecture.It is particularly important for China to study provincializing transnational landscape.Firstly,China has been closely connecting with both Eastern and Western countries,fo
16、r example,through the Silk Road and the Imperial Chinese Tributary System.The provincialization of landscape ideas not only forms the inclusive landscape layout of China but also promotes the spread of Chinese culture around the world.Studying provincializing transnational landscape will shed light on re-considering Chinas historical local-global interactions through the landscape,and provide a lens of“the Other”to explore the regional characteristics of landscapes in China,which,in turn,will ad