China’s rapid urbanization is unprecedented. Meanwhile the cities’ energy consumption reached 75% of the country’s total consumption. Refering to Bruno Latour’s article “To Modernize or to Ecologize?“, the seminar addresses the imperative and the limits of sustainable development under conditions of rapid urbanization. The seminar provides an overview of the various forms of urban architecture and the residential realities of different social classes; this includes, for instance, the housing situation of migrant workers living in the industrialized Pearl River Delta, of old town residents in the capital Beijing or of middle-class condominium residents in the colonially shaped Shanghai. The seminar provides a sense for processes of rapid urbanization in mega-cities and for the accompanying ecological challenges and possible reactions provided by architecture. The seminar will be jointly conducted by Prof. Sascha Roesler and Dr. Madlen Kobi (a sino-anthropologist).