Driving the discovering of car culture

The impact of the invention of the automobile on humansociety has been momentous.

As Ruan Jiewang, vice dean of the Automobile Culture and Race Research Institute of Tongji Uni-versity, concluded after a culture tour of Shanghai International Automobile City recently: “It is a people-ariented humanistic relationship between humans and automobiles.”

Every automobile around the world has its own culture. There-fore China also needs to find where its own uniqueness lies.“The ethnic characteristic of theChinese automobile is our focus in automobile culture,”says Ruan.

In the history of human civiliza-tion, creation always comes before action. Innovative ideas direct what we do to make them possible. Thus culture is the leading factor in de-velopment.lt has already occurred to the designers at the Automobile City that the automobile industry is not merely about production but about the soul of cars, the spiritual drive of development.

After five years' construction,the Automobile City accomplished its initial shape of six functional sections.“It's time to integratethe single elements and present a rounded auto city,”says Ruan.

He believes the soul of cars refers to the combination of speed,passion and ethnic features. The essential comprehensiveness of ShanghaiIntemational Automobile.City differentiates it from other car cities, demonstrating its flawless multi-functional service.

“The young car city settling in the historic town of Anting,is just like a Chinese old man marrying a foreign girl,”says Ruan.“Whether they can bear a healthy half-breed baby depends much on their abilityto get along wellin peace.”

Between the two immensely different cultures, the govemment should serve as a guide as well as a lubricant, in order to establish a suitable platform for the two cultures to connect and mingle.

The Automobile City should consist of three wings—the documentary wing, the art wing and the lifestyle wing, an auto-mobile culture association and an automobile culture study center.

The documentary wing mainly serves as a knowledge platform for innovation and research,whereas the art wing houses vehicledisplays.

The lifestyle wing, based on cultural consumption, draws common people closerto the automobile industry. Specialists and scholars of the Automobile Culture Association can enjoy inspirational exchanges, passing on their thoughts to the citizens through the Automobile Culture Study Center.

“Such multi-functionality enables cultural differences to coexist in harmony and finally achieves unification among all sections,”says Ruan