The Southern Square in the Baltic Pearl: Chinese ambition and “European” architecture in St. Petersburg, Russia.

The Baltic Pearl is a 205-hectare development project underway southwest of St. Petersburg, Russia, originally financed and designed by a consortium of firms from Shanghai, China. This paper analyzes the discourse surrounding the development of one section of the Baltic Pearl, the commercial multiplex Southern Square, particularly the use of the term “European” as used to signal the project's intended cultural orientation and to exert control over the interaction between Russian planners and Chinese developers. In the negotiation over the form of the multiplex, control over architectural style emerges as leverage for preservation of cultural norms and local autonomy. In further analysis, the situation emerges as an example of Sassen's [(2008)Territory, Authority, Rights. From Medieval to Global Assemblages. Princeton: Princeton University Press] shifting assemblages, that is, a reassembling of global influences in a space invoked as national as well as local. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]