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[…] After the Revolution in 1949, traditional cities and towns in China have passed through a significant transformation in regards of their physical appearance. The most evident change during the transformation period is new housing. This new housing was much affected by the idea of "modernization and particularly, the idea of "western modernism" (Mann 349).
In the era of Mao Ze Dung's Great Leap Forward, (1957-1960) when millions of Chinese died of starvation, housing was not an essential point for the Chinese people. The housing, developed together with the modernist lines, strictly followed early post-war West European concepts and samples of planning, and it mainly relied on large-scale pre-cast concrete building systems existing in that time. At the same time, in the west the large-scale pre-cast concrete systems were applied because of housing shortage after the war and later they were improved or transformed by many new and more relevant approaches. It is worth to note that in the quickly developed economies of Western Europe, the large-scale pre-cast systems could be immediately changed. However, in economically stagnant former Eastern Block countries these building systems became an actual standard. The same systems remained as an essential part of the national housing in China that was the close ally with the former USSR in the 1950's (Kwok 325). […]
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