Between poetics and utility: Landscape infrastructure in China

The conceptual history of landscape is mired between the dualities of poetics and utility-rooted in its origins of landscape art and the current preoccupation with alternative sustainable infrastructures. This essay unpacks the 'mutuality' of nature as a traditional cultural practice and as innovative technology in contemporary Chinese landscape architecture. The 'Sponge City' practices of promoting green infrastructure exemplify the coproduction of urban nature in scientific and cultural terms, and suggest an alternative analytical framework for urban infrastructure research in China.