A danwei, or work unit, constituted a form of social organization in Maoist China. It followed the principle of organizing workplace and housing as a spatial unit. Each and every citizen of the People’s Republic of China was assigned to a unit that would provide for his/her work, social, and cultural needs. “The Chinese system in the 1950s planned for each enterprise to provide for housing as well as social and cultural facilities of its employees making these units self-sufficient entities. Regardless of their size any enterprise was obliged to supply a full set of facilities including housing, schools, a canteen medical care, etc. For this reason very often smaller neighboring enterprises shared ‘a common set of facilities’.” (Lue/Rowe/Zhang 2001: 117)

Besides the danwei’s role as the major identifying instrument, the layout and design of the work units and the way they were laid out in China’s cities created a unique spatial order specific to the People’s Republic of China.

Typically a danwei is characterized by a number of particular features. In traditional Chinese architecture it is enclosed by a wall and accessible through one or more gates. The work unit certainly is a brainchild of the early 1950s Communist era. Nevertheless, gated compounds existed in China throughout the ages. Specifically, the walls around work units correspond with China’s traditional style of city layouts based on a grid of nine quadrangles of courtyard housing.

Urban planners in post-1949 China developed urban schemes for new towns based on the neighborhood unit scheme of Clarence Perry. Architecture theorist Duangfang Lu outlines the transcultural aspects of a work unit in her book, with urbanism showing various strings connecting to the Soviet Union’s mikrorayon and earlier examples of Japanese and Chinese town planning utilizing the neighborhood concept as their major underlying design idea. “Buildings that house production, residences and community facilities within the work unit differ in height, style and age, but in general they are modern brick and concrete structures designed based on rationalist doctrines.” (Lu 2006:58)(CL)

Bray, David (2005): Social Space and Governance in Urban China. The Danwei System from Origins to Reform. Stanford. Stanford University Press.

Lue, Junhua, /Rowe, Peter G/ Zhang, Jie (Eds.) (2001): Modern Urban Housing in China. New York: Prestel München New York.

Lowell, Dittmer. Lu, Xiaobo. (1996): “Personal Politics in the Chinese Danwei under Reform.“ In: Asian Survey, Vol. 36, No. 3, /1996. 246-267

Lu, Feng (1989): “The Danwei: A Unique Form of Social Organization”. In: Chinese Social Science I/1989. 71-88

Lu, Duanfang (2006). Remaking Chinese Urban Form. Modernity, Scarcity and Space, 1949-2005. London [et.al.]: Routledge.

Yang, Zhen/Xu, Miao (Eds.) (2009): Design history of China’s gated cities and neighbourhoods: Prototype and evolution. In: URBAN DESIGN International 14 /2009. 99-117