Planning Daqing-Dalian oil clusters. Towards the sustainable future

Abstract

Since its discovery in the early-1960s, Daqing has been propagandized as the national model for the severe built environment and heroic oil workers. Many of the spatial representations showing the urban and rural forms, architectures, and lifestyles, were created mainly by state-employed professionals, including visual artists (painters and photographers), urban planners and architects. Before the Chinese Economic Reforms (1980s), such spatial representations were substantial. It was easy to distinguish the figure of Daqing and its people through numerous social medias and academic textbooks. However, after the 1990s, the development of the spatial representations started to decline. Only the state-employed artists have produced the visual creations for specific events such as the 50 years anniversary of the discovery of Daqing, while others have rarely
included Daqing and its people in creations. Moreover, the current spatial representations made by the visual artists are still presenting the built environment between 1960s and early 1990s. The new changes in the built environment and people’s lifestyle that occurred after the 1990s have not been presented. The paper explores why and how the new changes in the built environment have been ignored by visual artists, comparing the new spatial representations to the new spatial changes. It argues that both the decreasing national investment and the lost identity in the new spatial plans are key factors influencing the constant development of the spatial representations.