MACAO'S REVOLUTION BEFORE 1999: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MACAO’S ECONOMY, URBANIZATION AND ARCHITECTURE

Over the decades, there have been numerous arguments over the impact of the gaming industry on Macao. No doubt, same coin always has two sides. However, the gaming industries undoubtedly facilitated urban planning and city development that benefited Macao throughout the 20th century up to the 1990s. This thesis will focus on Macao’s urban planning before the return to Chinese rule and discuss how the political and economic issues involved affected, directed and shaped Macao's resulting urban development in the 20th Century.

This research seeks to understand the history of Macao’s economy, urban planning and architecture, and explore the situation in Macao before the 1999 handover back to China, especially how the architecture of hotels and casinos evolved rapidly between the mid-19th Century and 1999. It scrutinizes not just the general trends of Macao’s development over 400 years, but also the transformation of its architecture through plans and design intentions. Through exploring the history of Macao from these perspectives and using case studies, it seeks to elucidate the situation in Macao before the 1999 handover and demonstrate how the growth of gaming shaped Macao into its existing landscape, with its architecture a direct side product reflecting the changes that occurred between the 1860s and 1999.

Surprisingly, even in 2000, Macao was quite different from today. According to records, until relatively recently, Macao was only a small village, lacking any urban planning for political and economic development. Initially, even the arrival of foreign forces brought no great change, and it remained a small village. The turning point came in the 19th Century, when the Portuguese Government announced laws for urban planning in Macao and launched various policies to achieve Macao’s “city goals”. In the late 19th Century, gaming industries literally became the main economic activity of Macao. Although the Portuguese Government made numerous realignments, right up to the day of Macao’s Handover back to China, the results were not fully oriented to Macao’s stated “city goals” of economic diversification.

This thesis begins by reviewing Macao’s history since the arrival of the Portuguese, including the introduction of planning. It surveys in some detail the city’s increasing economic reliance from the mid-nineteenth century onward upon gambling and related activities. It then discusses the broad impact of the rise of gambling and growing demands from patrons for more sophisticated gaming facilities upon Macao’s urban architecture. It uses the case studies of three twentieth-century hotels, each of which included a casino, to consider in detail how the changing demands of the gambling and tourist clientele affected the architecture of these facilities, as well as the broader urban development of Macao. The thesis concludes by discussing whether or not Macao’s lengthy economic dependence upon gambling and associated activities has been inevitable, or whether alternative development strategies might have existed.