Urban Atmospheres between East and West Exploring Affect, Identity, and Mobility

List of figures

List of contributors

Acknowledgements

Introduction: The diversity of urban atmospheres: Affective cities between East and West

Jiawen Han, Federico De Matteis

Part 1: Atmosphere, and Urban-Architectural Dynamics

1. The city as a separation of (atmospheric) powers

Tonino Griffero

2. Affective Atmosphere as Method: Spatial Revitalization in Suzhou's Old Town

Jiawen Han

3. Ma, Oku and Harappa: Urban Atmospheres in the Discourse of Postwar Japanese Architects

Kenta Matsui

Part 2: Urban Atmospheres and Multicultural Cities

4. Crowdscapes: The Atmospheres of Urban Congestion

Federico De Matteis

5. Re-Routing Chinatown: Navigating Urban Atmosphere of intercultural Kuala Lumpur Chinatown

Yat Ming Loo

6. Resonances and Shared Echoes in the City of Nicosia

Roberta Manno

Part 3: Affective Dynamics and Urban Belonging in the Face of Mega-projects

7. Affective Exclusion and Unbelonging in the Chinese Megacity

Leif Johnson

8. The ZAD from the City: Collective Atmospheres of Protest

Alberta Piselli

Part 4 Atmospheres in Motion: Between Urban and Rural

9. Atmospheres in Motion: Between Urban and Rural: Affective Topographies and Atmospheric Dimension of Italy’s Inner-Area Villages

Camilla Sette

10. Emotional Resilience and Spatial Hybridity: Migrant-Driven Urban Atmosphere Production in Chongqing’s Public Rental Housing

Jie Xiong

Conclusion: Four notes on urban atmospheres

Federico De Matteis, Jiawen Han

Index

Biography

Jiawen Han is an Associate Professor in the Department of Architecture, Design School, at the Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou. She holds a PhD in architecture from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, and is the author of China’s Architecture in a Globalizing World: Between Socialism and the Market (Routledge, 2018). She also recently co-authored the book Chinese Cities as Pedagogies: Interdisciplinary Teaching Practice (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025) with Xiangwen Kuang and Guanghui Ding. Her research interests span contemporary Chinese architecture and architects, the intersection of architecture and media, and the affective dimensions of urban transformation.

Federico De Matteis is an architect and full Professor of Design at the University of L’Aquila, Italy, where he serves as chair of the PhD program in Civil, Building-Architectural and Environmental Engineering. His research work focuses on the affective dimension of space and the corporeal resonance between the experiencing subject and architecture, and on the tools to express this relationship. His recent books are Affective Spaces. Architecture and the Living Body (Routledge, 2020), I sintomi dello spazio. Corpo architettura città (Mimesis, 2021); The Affective City: 1. Spaces, Atmospheres and Practices in Changing Urban Territories and 2. Abitare il terremoto (edited with S. Catucci, LetteraVentidue, 2021 and 2022).