Modern Chinese architecture and urban development have been shaped by diverse and often overlooked processes of modernization. Beyond iconic monuments and canonical architectural works, a wide range of industrial landscapes, infrastructures, technical systems, environmental interventions, and transnational exchanges have profoundly influenced the built environment and everyday life. Many of these material and spatial relics remain insufficiently recognized within conventional architectural and heritage narratives, constituting what may be understood as “hidden heritage.”

This special issue seeks to explore the multiple modernities embedded in Chinese architecture and urban development from the twentieth century to the present. Rather than treating modernity as a singular or universal trajectory, the issue examines how architectural knowledge, technical expertise, planning practices, environmental adaptation, and socio-political agendas have been negotiated, transferred, and transformed across different geographical, institutional, and cultural contexts. Particular attention is given to the relationships between architecture, infrastructure, technology, landscape, memory, and heritage-making.

The issue welcomes interdisciplinary contributions from architectural history, urban studies, heritage studies, history of technology, environmental humanities, and digital technology. Potential topics include, but are not limited to, hidden or pan-heritage, industrial and infrastructural landscapes, transnational knowledge and technology transfer, environmental and climate-responsive design, digital approaches to documentation and visualization, and the evolving meanings of modern heritage in contemporary society.

By foregrounding hidden heritage as a critical lens, this special issue aims to broaden understandings of Chinese modernity and contribute to ongoing debates on architecture, urbanism, heritage, and global knowledge circulation.