ANNUAL CONGRESS 2025

Study on the "Props" Production System Behind the "Set" of Daliy Consumerism in Chinese Urban Public Spaces: A Field Study of Prop Factories in the Suburbs around Shanghai

Not scheduled

20m

Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul

Oral Track 17 | PUBLIC SPACE

Speaker

Ms Xiaodan Lin (Tongji University)

Description

Since the 1990s, the rapid development of China’s market economy and the emergence of mass society have profoundly transformed the character of urban public spaces. During this process, consumerist culture has gradually taken a dominant role, reshaping daily lifestyles and deeply influencing public imagination and spatial organization in cities. As consumer demand continues to rise and market trends shift rapidly, the daily experiential scenes in urban environments have been repeatedly updated and reconstructed, resulting in a multitude of rapidly iterating “sets” . These sets are not merely simple backdrops for consumer venues or commercial displays but have become visual and experiential symbols of consumerist culture. Against this backdrop, a unique “prop” production system—prop factories—has emerged and taken root in China’s urban and suburban areas.
Prop factories are not traditional factories in the conventional sense. The “props” they produce are not limited to theater or film use; instead, they are widely employed in various commercial settings. As a critical component of material spatial production in consumerist cities, prop factories are not merely a result of consumer culture—they also play a key role in its ongoing expansion. This study, through an in-depth investigation of ten representative prop factories in the outskirts of Shanghai, explores how these factories, driven by consumerist culture, shape material landscapes in rapidly evolving consumer-oriented urban public spaces by leveraging flexible organizational structures and customized production models. The research aims to uncover the production processes, organizational characteristics, and construction methods of these factories and analyze how their production activities profoundly influence the mechanisms of material spatial production and the transformation of urban landscapes.
This study reveals that while consumer society has given rise to “post-industrial” urban landscapes, the production mechanisms behind these landscapes remain in a “semi-handcrafted, semi-industrialized” state. These prop factories, which rely on flexible processes and a focus on customization, do not depend on fully mechanized mass production. Instead, they skillfully integrate traditional craftsmanship with early-stage industrial production methods, creating a unique hybrid production model. On one hand, they take advantage of abundant, low-skill labor; on the other, they benefit from a highly developed industrial manufacturing system. This combination results in a production relationship where machines and human labor coexist, providing prop factories with exceptional flexibility and adaptability to rapidly respond to ever-changing consumer demands.
This production model not only shapes “post-industrial” urban landscapes, but also reveals the unique interplay between traditional craftsmanship and industrial manufacturing systems. The existence and operation of prop factories provide a valuable micro-level perspective for understanding the mechanisms that drive the formation of China’s fast-consumption urban spaces. Furthermore, they shed light on how rapidly evolving consumerist culture profoundly influences and reshapes the underlying logic of urban public spaces.