Jianshe, meaning development or building, is the foil for all phenomena of political, social, and economical nature emerging in China during the years of transformation into a socialist state economy. The Chinese term signifies the general development period of the new China after 1949.
“It signaled a rational realignment of the relationships between state, society, man, and nature and mobilized the individual to participate in this collective project of modernization. […] In this context a special role was assigned to urban development, urban planning and the building industry in general; these spheres of activity function as discursive points of intersection where material and metaphoric contexts of meaning of the term Jianshe converge.” (Stein, 2008:5)

In regard to urban conglomerations, the central concern was to transform from a “consumer city to a productive city,” (Stein, 2008; Wang, 2011) whereas productivity was primarily defined as industrial growth and the transfer and implementation of technology. The urban population was to be primarily employed in industrial work.

Development was a general issue throughout the 1950s and had different connotations in different parts of the world. While in post-war Central Europe architectural modernism took place in the destroyed inner cities cores, rapid urbanization processes in newly independent, formerly colonized countries in Asia, Africa, and South America often meant large housing developments on the periphery of existing cities. In China it stood for the utilization of modernism for socialist development as it had happened in the 1920s in the Soviet Union through the transfer of technology, standardization, rationalization, the bio-political organization of life, etc. Modernity in that sense is a cross-system phenomenon; whereas Zygmunt Baumann claims “Socialism is the counter-culture of capitalism.” (Tester, 2004:101)
“Socialism found nothing wrong with the project of modernity. All that was wrong was the outcome of the capitalist distortion.[...] Between socialism and modernity there was no quarrel of principle. Throughout its history, socialism was modernity’s most vigorous and gallant champion. It also claimed to be its only true champion. [...] Capitalism was an unnecessary deflection from the path of reason. Communism was a straight road to its kingdom. Communism, Lenin would say, is Soviet power together with the ‘electrification of the whole country,’ i.e. modern technology and modern industry under an awareness of its purpose in advance and leaving nothing to chance. Communism was modernity in its most determined mode and most decisive position; modernity streamlined, purified of the last shred of the chaotic, the irrational, the spontaneous, the unpredictable.” (Stein, 2008:47)

The transition of the old China to the new socialist state order was supported by consecutive official political campaigns, each containing countless principles and guidelines. Many of them were directly targeted at issues of housing, construction, and urban planning and reflected the current state of affairs. “Serving production as well as people’s livelihoods,” (Lue/Rowe/Zhang, 2001:105) was a slogan of the first five-year plan; during a later period of the same plan it changed to “production first, livelihood second.” (Lue/Rowe/Zhang, 2001:106) Towards the end of the second five-year plan, known as the three difficult years (1959, 1960, 1961), the lowering of housing standards was promoted through “thrifty is revolutionary.” During the first years of building the new China, when the Soviet Union served as a role model for general development, “Learning from the Soviet Union” was promoted not only for urban planning and housing schemes, but was partly also implemented on a university level, encouraging the fast training of professional experts. Even though this period is commonly regarded as block-internal colonization, Susanne Stein has shown that transfers of knowledge were neither one nor two directional, but a manifold network of interconnections.

Before the Great Leap Forward was launched in 1958, the “anti-waste” campaign of the late 1950s and the “100 Flowers movement” marked two other important campaigns. Anti-waste urged architects and planners to reconsider current housing production and adapt to more economical requirements.
“Letting a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend is the policy for promoting progress in the arts and the sciences and a flourishing socialist culture in our land.”
The 1957 campaign started by Mao and Prime Minister Zhou Enlai stimulated artists and intellectuals to develop ideas and concepts for a communist future. During this time many architects also took the opportunity to develop a broad portfolio of new ideas concerning urban development, housing schemes, and architecture in general.
“Thorough review of housing design principles learned from the Soviet Union, together with an attachment of greater importance to research, an objective and realistic spirit was injected into housing design during the period of readjustment and rectification. Subsequently, housing design began to consider residents’ demands and actual economic conditions more seriously, and the range of housing types was enriched.” (Lue/Rowe/Zhang, 2001:141)
A short time later many of these ideas were turned against intellectuals as counter-revolutionary during the anti-rightist movement. (CL)

Sources:
Lue, Junhua /Rowe, Peter G/Zhang, Jie (Eds.) (2001): Modern Urban Housing in China. New York: Prestel München New York
Stein, Susanne (2008): Von der Konsumentenstadt zur Produktionsstadt: Visionen von „Aufbau“ und Urbanisierung im Neuen China, 1949-1957. Universität Tübingen. Diss.
Tester, Keith (2004): The social Thought of Zygmunt Baumann. New York Et.al: Palgrave Macmillan.