Shanghai has become a city based on the binary logic separating housing area and commercial area. Even though most people in Shanghai spend most of their time in offices, schools, shops, and suburban factories, the new distribution of urban space proves that the dwelling is the core of Shanghai people‘s life.
The transformation of the city was accompanied by the creation of visual elements that precisely advocates this new distribution of the urban space. To illustrate this, let's take a closer look at real estate advertising, which - followed by auto advertising - literally invaded Shanghai as well as many other cities. You can see them on the street, along the highway, on TV, and even in taxis and boarding passes.
Using several real estate adverts, especially the most visible, we will analyze the most commonly seen models.
Type 1: The house is seen from the outside and placed in a corner, in a visible way to leave more room for other elements such as an exotic (Western) atmosphere, a complete set of modern equipment, symbols of a happy family life (young child, beautiful woman, etc.), a particularly green space, and so on. The display is neat and the palette harmonious.
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| Source: http://www.nipic.com/ |
Type 2: The house is in the middle of the image, surrounded by shops, offices, subway station, gardens, etc. Another version shows the house in the background of the picture while the other elements are placed in the foreground as if the whole city belonged to the residence. The whole picture is shown and framed as a photo displayed on the wall of the house.
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| Source: http://www.ambassador-sh.com/ |
Type 3: The house is seen from the inside of a living room or a bedroom with a large window opened on a beautiful landscape. It can be a river, a garden, a forest or a lively and enlightened commercial space.
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| Source: http://www.tooopen.com/ |
Type 4: The house is barely visible; It can be seen through woods, meadows, a blue sky or a pond.
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| Source: http://www.ooopic.com/ |
All these advertising types aim to relate the purchase of the house to the possession of a whole series of "derived products" that make the dream life: wealth, security, exoticism, perfect family life, urban prosperity, proximity to nature, the art of living - in short, success. Advertising is not focusing on the real estate property anymore to put the stress on the more general and abstract qualities associated with it, as a famous advertisement for a Shanghai house says: "I do not sell home, I sell life. The house comes with it". If real estate developers have become the architects of the Shanghai, real estate advertisers can be considered as the preachers of the modern city dream: they work not only on the image of a house but the entire life of the person who will buy it.
The application of this advertising method goes hand in hand with the authoritarian nature of the logic of the Chinese market. The more the housing price increases, the more the real estate market feels the need to hammer home people with the same idea: family and home are the two most important components of everyone's happiness. In other words, the housing market must succeed in persuading buyers to consider buying a home as the priority of a lifetime. Indeed, the logic of the real estate market not only gives priority to the house but also accentuates to infinity the symbolic dimension of the dwelling. With the expansion of this logic, a new sensitivity is becoming widespread: people tend to perceive the world and life from home, or even make the house the center of the world.
