Made for China: Localizations of International Architecture in China, 2001-2018

To date, the story of architectural production in 21st century China has focused on institutions and actors in an ever-globalizing system of practice [1–4]. This worthy approach nevertheless obscures opposite yet equally significant trends, namely the localization of architectural products. Architectural practices are indeed becoming moreglobal,andyettheirworkis—withnotableexceptions—morefrequentlyconvicted of a necessity for localization, such that two buildings designed by an American firm, one in California and the other in Shanghai, should not be indistinguishable from each other. Thus, a more complete telling of this story demands an investigation of how the local and the national are represented materially in work that is, structurally, international. Through a close reading of several iconic buildings in China designed by international architects, this contribution proposes a framework for categorizing localization strategies. In addition, it investigates the origins of the localization imperative both in general and specific to China. These findings amplify architecture’s cross-cultural vocabulary and improve the ability of architectural practices to consider the cultural sited-ness of their work not only in China but around the world.

Cross-listing and corporate governance: Bonding or avoiding?

In their seminal survey of corporate governance, Shleifer and Vishny distill the issue into a blunt question: "How do [the suppliers of finance] make sure that managers do not steal the capital they supply or invest it in bad projects?" The Enron/Arthur Andersen debacle and the ensuing wave’s of scandal vividly proved that American investors may face this question in the most acute form. To the extent that corporate governance issues play a role in the cross-listing decision, it is a negative role. Generally speaking, the foreign issuer regime "cuts corners" exactly on the issues of corporate governance relating to corporate insiders. The notion that issuers may want to improve their corporate governance by subjecting themselves to a better regulatory regime through cross-listing—say, on an American market—is appealingly elegant. If an American firm could use an NYSE listing to bond its insiders to better governance standards, why couldn’t foreign firms do the same? In an oft-cited 1999 article, Jack Coffee argues that they do just that: In other cases, however, the cross-listing may not entail corporate governance improvements. The cross-listing literature refers to differences in investor protection in three separate respects. In practice, however, foreign issuers can easily obtain an exemption from corporate governance listing requirements. The notion that corporations can self-improve their corporate governance by opting into a foreign country’s legal and regulatory regime through cross-listing has made considerable inroads into the legal and finance literature.