Michael Falser, Habsburgs Going Global. The Austro-Hungarian Concession in Tientsin/Tianjin in China (1901–1917) (with a historical introduction by Georg Lehner), 2022. Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences. ISBN: 978-3-7001-8927-5. Open access: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/58050.

In the opening pages of his richly documented book on the history of the Austro-Hungarian concession in Tianjin, Michael Falser recalls to what extent research on the European ‘concessions’ in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century Chinese cities is currently both abundant and fragmented. Historical studies on the subject abound, but they are often limited to specific national settlements and based on national sources. European scholars have access to interesting archival materials in their own respective homelands but rarely have the opportunity to study Chinese documents. Conversely, Chinese scholars and institutions have dedicated a certain amount of attention to the history and transformation of former concession areas, but generally without integrating substantial material from European archives.

The book, admittedly, remains with this trend: it is a monographic study of a single national concession, based on sources that are kept in various Austrian archives. The author, an architectural historian, has carried out his research in Europe, complementing it with fieldwork in Tianjin that resulted in a number of observations on the present state of the former Austro-Hungarian neighbourhood. However, the book stands out from most of the current literature on concessions for a few reasons, the first of which originates from the specific character of its object. The Austro-Hungarian concession in Tianjin was not a successful one. As the introductory chapter written by historian Georg Lehner illustrates, the Austro-Hungarian empire was a latecomer in the international race for a commercial presence in China’s port cities and obtained a territory in Tianjin only in the aftermath of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894–1895) and the Boxer rebellion (1899–1901). This part of the city progressively returned to China after the outbreak of the First World War. The concession, therefore, existed for about fifteen years, during which the imperial authorities struggled to bring significant disruptions in both its physical form and organisation. Seen from this perspective, the Austro-Hungarian sector of Tianjin offers a counterexample to many existing narratives on the European concessions in China, one in which a ‘reluctant coloniser’ partly failed to activate those dense diplomatic and trade networks that other studies—such as Pierre Singaravelou’s Tianjin Cosmopolis (Singaravelou, 2017)—have presented as essential factors in the historical construction of a modern, globalised world.

A Hungarian traveler visiting the Austro-Hungarian concession in 1904 estimated that ‘not many things have happened’ in what appeared then as a densely populated Chinese neighbourhood about the size of the centre of Budapest. However, a few relevant things happened in this sector of the city in the following years, and the book documents them carefully, reconstructing the architectural and infrastructural initiatives that were taken by the European colonisers. Two consulate buildings, designed by architect Ferdinand Kowarski—previously entrusted with the task of designing the building of the Austro-Hungarian legation in Beijing—were inaugurated in 1905. The same year saw the foundation of a construction company, the Hotung Baugesellschaft, which started to promote redevelopment plans in some sectors of the concession for a potential clientele of European settlers. An iron bridge connecting the concession to the Chinese centre of the city also opened in 1906. Such initiatives were accompanied by ambitious schemes, such as those for the creation of a ‘Haupstrasse’ running through the neighborhood, a new tramway line, a ‘Bund’, and other engineering works along the Hai River. These ideas mostly remained on paper, and a catastrophic flood that submerged a large part of the concession in 1911 contributed to bring many of them to an early end.

The book is based upon a wide range of written and visual sources collected in a plurality of Austrian archives. One single piece of documentation stands out and is reproduced in the book in its entirety (pp. 185–259): a photographic album called Österr.-ungar. Niederlassung Tientsin, retrieved by the author in the picture collections of the National Library in Vienna. This extensive collection of 115 pictures, complemented with extended captions, documents the state of the neighbourhood in the late 1910s and includes a few shots taken in the immediate aftermath of the 1911 flood. It is by all means an extraordinary source that offers a precious insight into the daily life environments of the concessions: the buildings, the streets of the city, and the activities of its inhabitants. Falser uses this visual evidence, complemented by a thorough analysis of administrative papers and maps, to carry out a highly detailed reconstruction of the architectural and urban history of the place.

The last part of the book is dedicated to the architectural heritage left by this historical phase and is arguably one of its key sections. Illustrating the recent state of the neighbourhood through a series of photographs taken on site in 2018, Falser documents the heritage-making practices that have touched the buildings since the beginning of the present century, when Chinese authorities and investors started to recognise the value of these architectural remains as potential testimonies of the historical vocation of Tianjin as a global city. Such a cultural appropriation has led not only to the restoration of existing buildings but to a reinvention of them through several incongruous modifications that have led to the creation of ‘slightly uneasy hybrids’ (p. 161). Many ‘Austrian’ buildings that are not documented by historical sources have also appeared on site. According to the author, the exotic ‘global theme park atmosphere’ (p. 182) that can be perceived in many of the former concession areas of Tianjin shows the dangers inherent in the hyper-commodification of heritage that characterises ‘our present super-globalisation’ (p. 12). In this respect, the book presents itself as an invitation to counter such trends by promoting stronger historical knowledge of the existing built environment and by renewing close research collaborations between European and Chinese experts.