The dynamic identity of Chinese urban heritage space-Laomendong as a case study

China provides a unique urban context to explore identity within the globalization. This paper examines the role of heritage conservation in making the contemporary city among heritage, commerce and tourism. Through a case study of Laomendong, a conservation-led transformation project in the inner-city of Nanjing, I analyze how heritage elements of the built environment are selectively and inserted into the new urban space. Heritage space materializes the memory in the city and has been transformed into a modern space for commerce and tourism by global and local actors. Finally, this study concludes that place identity can be interpreted as an interrelationship among physical environment, experience, and people, which needed to consider the different groups of users.