In 2014, President Xi expressed dissatisfaction with China’s “weird architecture”. Although foreign architects have been invited for years to submit unique designs, Chinese distaste for strange buildings has resulted in a government ban on the so-called “weird architecture”.

The ban, which was implemented early this year, was too late for Beijing’s new airport. As a prominent blogger on Weibo pointed out, the design of what is expected to be the largest airport in the world might, when viewed from a certain perspective, resemble part of the female anatomy.

Yesterday, Yang Jinlin posted a photo of the model of the new airport, along with this text:

“Here’s a bird’s-eye view of the design for the new Beijing Airport. Do you know the name of the designer?”

There is nothing really provocative about Yang’s post; but, netizens quickly followed Yang’s lead and remarked that the resemblance was uncanny: “This is worship of the reproductive (organs).” Others simply didn’t see it: “It’s clearly a starfish…everyone’s imagination is running too wild.”

The architect who designed Beijing’s new airport, Zaha Hadid, is a famous English designer of Iraqi descent. Despite her fame, Chinese netizens strangely insulted her with names like “witch”, “female devil”, “crazy”, and “alien”.

Most netizens make sense of new buildings by referring to them by what they resemble. Sometimes the comparison is benign, such as how the Shanghai World Financial Center looks like a bottle opener. Other times, the comparison is much more comical, such as how the People’s Daily Building resembles a penis (above left), or how the CCTV Tower looks like a pair of pants (above right).

The comparison prompted one netizen to complain, “The (building for the) People’s Daily is standing; the (building for the) CCTV is squatting; and now the airport in the capital is lying down. These new landmark buildings are such nonsense!! Oh Beijing, Beijing: where have your characteristics gone?”

Regardless of how netizens feel about the design, Beijing’s new airport is currently under construction, which began last year and is expected to finish in 2019.

If you happen to be one of the people who can’t see what all the fuss is about, then don’t expect the Chinese media to tell you. In news reports about the scandal, no mention is made of what the airport design resembles.

But if you do need some help, this Weibo user helps us with this particular interpretation:

The post Chinese Netizens Compare Beijing’s New Airport Design To Female Anatomy appeared first on The Nanfang.

Interest in the building, which has actually paid licensing rights to Star Trek franchise owner CBS, has piqued with the recent popularity of a drone video of the structure, officially known as the “Sunny Heaven Building”.

The building is the brainchild of Liu Dejian, CEO of Netdragon, a major online gaming company in China. Located in Changle, Fujian, the building serves as the headquarters for its Haixi animation department and was built at a cost of $160 million, including the cost of licensing rights.

Seen from above, Google Maps shows the attention to detail in the building’s design:

First proposed in 2008, the building has been in the news a number of times before it was finally completed in 2014. Here’s the concrete frame of the (detachable?) saucer section seen during construction:

Corporate photographs reveal that the interior does not house a main engineering section, nor does it have Chief O’Brien awaiting orders at a transporter station. Instead, this Enterprise is housed with facilities that include a rock climbing wall, pool, sauna, 24-hour self service bar and an exercise room.

Despite the vastly different interior, Star Trek purists will have difficulty finding fault with the exterior of the Sunny Heaven Building. That said, they may take issue with the nearby X-wing fighter, which was completed in 2013.

The post Inside the Chinese USS Enterprise Building appeared first on The Nanfang.

When completed, the Enchanted Storybook Castle in Shanghai Disneyland will contain a grand spiral staircase that features the “Once Upon a Time Adventure” attraction starring a roster of Disney princesses. The castle will also house a boat ride attraction in a secret underground chamber.

Befitting its Pudong environs, Enchanted Storybook Castle in Shanghai will be Disney’s tallest and largest castle to date, although its exact dimensions have yet to be made public.

It will also be Disney’s largest resort development to date, surpassing its other locations in Anaheim, Orlando, Paris, Tokyo and Hong Kong. At 963 acres, Shanghai Disney Resort will be three times the size of Hong Kong Disneyland Resort. It will cost 24.5 billion yuan ($3.7 billion) to build the new theme park with an additional 4.5 billion yuan in construction costs for future facilities and installations.

As with the golden peony-topped finial, Disney has combined Chinese elements into the design of many attractions in the park. The center of Shanghai Disneyland will feature the “Garden of the Twelve Friends” in which the 12 signs of the Chinese zodiac will be depicted with popular Disney characters in mosaic murals.

Cinderella Castle in Walt Disney World Resort in Anaheim was designed to be below 200 feet in order to avoid having to abide by US federal regulations that mandate the installing of aircraft warning lights on structures exceeding that height.

For a detailed look at how far construction has come, Disney’s communications department is maintaining an English-language blog charting progress of the development.

In other related Disney news, today marks the opening of Disney’s flagship store in Lujiazui, Shanghai, next to the Oriental Pearl Tower. The new store is – you guessed it! – Disney’s largest in the world at 5,000 square meters. To commemorate the occasion, the store is currently selling specially-themed “Shanghai 2015” Disney products.

The post Shanghai Now Home to World’s Tallest Disneyland Castle appeared first on The Nanfang.

The unique design of the CCTV Building poses a challenge for window washers, who are photographed rappelling down the east face of the building and working as a team.

The 44-story building has faced numerous controversies since it was proposed.

In 2009, construction of the building was halted when a fire broke out on the adjacent Television Cultural Center that killed a firefighter; 71 people were put on trial as a result. After it was completed, the tower was mocked by locals as “the Big Pants” or “the Big Underwear” because of its shape.

Last year, President Xi Jinping said he didn’t like “strange architecture”, which prompted the passing of new guidelines and may have inspired criticism of the award-winning building. Last February, a Tsinghua professor said these “strange buildings” are a safety hazard.

The post Beijing’s Famous “Big Pants” CCTV Tower is About to Have Its First (Expensive) Bath appeared first on The Nanfang.

Nothing crystallizes this more than a brand new time lapse video that is circulating online. Migrant workers have been able to build a 57-story building in just 19 days in Changsha, Hunan Province. Clocking in at an average of three stories per day by working around the clock, the construction of the Mini Sky City uses a pre-fabricated factory-made material described as being similar to LEGO bricks. These are then pieced together on site, transforming regular migrant labor into a high-tech labor force.

The 180,000 square meter building has 20 centimeter-thick thermal insulated walls and four-paned glass windows make it 80 percent more energy efficient than ordinary buildings. The savings in energy is said to responsible for reducing 12,000 tons of CO2 production, equivalent to the the planting of 660,000 trees. The air filtration system is also able to provide indoor air that is 100 times cleaner than the muck outside.

Check it out.

The post Incredible Time Lapse of a 57 Story Building Going Up in Just 19 Days appeared first on The Nanfang.

In an interview published on iFeng, Professor Wang Lifang argued that the proliferation of all the “weird buildings” that have been appearing in China are a mistake, saying they are “the result of a fickle and impatient mood”:

There are a few strange and unacceptable buildings that honestly have a hidden danger to them. For example, there’s this one building that has this large suspended horizontal component at its top. It’s so high, and yet this component is so large. This is not conducive to maintaining the safety of the structure. What’s more, this structure has two “legs” that are splayed, and yet the elevators inside are running vertically. This gives the builders and safety coordinators added problems.
In terms of fire prevention, once a problem arises, the people inside the building can only escape using the two “legs” of the building. (In the same way,) firefighters going to extinguish the fire can only go up using these same two “legs”. (All this time,) there’s no escape for (the people located) in the middle beam, and that’s what makes this a fire safety risk. What’s more, the distance of the suspended beam is so long that there’s a great possibility that it exceeds the reasonable distance required to be able to safely escape. Since none of these are reasonable arrangements, then it could be said that the price of being weird is great by sacrificing safety standards.

Hmmm, which building could he possibly have been referring to?

He also said these “weird buildings” are purely a Chinese phenomenon:

Weird buildings only appear in certain niche situations, and can not be considered mainstream. Recently, construction of new buildings in the West is very rare because they are already full of buildings. When they do have a project, such as to build a new conference center or a small-scale exhibition hall that may be a few thousand square meters large, it may become a little strange. But since construction space is limited, the (strange) influence will also be limited, meaning that they have little room to play around.

Photo: iFeng

The post Tsinghua Prof Says China’s “Weird Buildings” are a Safety Hazard appeared first on The Nanfang.

The collapse of an illegal basement belonging to a representative of the National People’s Conference last week revealed a new and disturbing trend in Beijing. In order to increase the size and value of their property, Beijing homeowners are building illegal basements. Mostly seen in the city’s east and west ends, basement construction is most prevalent among siheyuan, a traditional Beijing-style courtyard home.

Homeowners use reinforced concrete and steel to support their basements with ceilings only two meters high. While the doubled floor space can add up to 10 million yuan to the value of the home, the excavation involved in building these basements, risks the collapse of neighbouring properties. Basement expansions are illegal in Beijing, and no building permits are granted for such renovations.

Notwithstanding the risks involved, as well as the illegality of their construction, an industry insider surnamed Wang revealed that nothing is being done to prevent them:

Digging out your own basement is not about how much money you spend. Reinforced concrete isn’t the most valuable (resource here), what’s most valuable is the guanxi (relationships) that a family has that will prevent anyone from filing a report.

Mr. Zhang, a member of the Housing Agency, believes Guanxi is the key unspoken rule: Guanxi ensures that residents don’t inform authorities of the illegal construction and, conversely, prevents authorities from asking about them.

Photos: fznews

The post Hottest New Trend: Beijingers Building Illegal Basements appeared first on The Nanfang.

President Xi Jinping recently said enough is enough. “I don’t want any more strange architecture,” he said. Now, the deputy mayor of Beijing Chen Gang agrees and says the city will play a more active role in enforcing style standards. “City planners are to consider the overall style of city buildings. Dimensions, scale, style, color, shape, and materials must conform to standard regulations.”

Chen made the comment at the Beijing Cultural Heritage and Innovation Forum of Construction Experts. Chen also said the new policy is to ensure public harmony and preserve traditional architecture, all while embodying a cosmopolitan spirit that maintains regional characteristics.

Photo: cbda

The post Beijing To Enforce Guidelines After Xi Edict on “Strange Architecture” appeared first on The Nanfang.

As seen in these pictures, the plan calls for two towers, one standing at 50 stories and 248 meters high, and the other standing at 41 stories at 194 meters high. The north tower is already finished.

The theme of the building design is “interconnectivity”, which explains the three middle sections that will connect the two buildings together. However, the theme is lost on netizens who bluntly ask why the building isn’t in the shape of a penguin, the company’s mascot, while another succinctly calls the construct a “handshake building”.

Related:

• Tencent’s New Guangzhou Offices Are 100% Awesome
• Sohu and Tencent Fined for Sharing Obscene Content
• Shenzhen, at the cutting edge of tech in China, has highest Weibo penetration rate

Photos: Shenzhen Announcements, tja

The post Tencent Building Iconic New Headquarters in Shenzhen appeared first on The Nanfang.

A boat cruises past European-style castles in the Venice replica in Dalian.

Dalian, the capital of Liaoning Province in northern China, has unveiled an RMB 5 billion replica of Venice, with 200 European-style castles, Gondolas and four kilometre-long canals, Xinhua reported.

The colossal construction project, dubbed the “Venice of the East” by local media, is the city’s ambitious move to boost tourism in the area. Boasting that it was the closest thing China had to Venice, Xinhua said the look and the amount of water in the canals were equal to the Italian city.

The announcement of China’s Venice came just days after President Xi Jinping criticized foreign-looking architecture at a Beijing symposium on the arts. Most online comments regarding the Venetian replica asked, “Why does domestic Chinese architecture always copy their foreign counterparts and lack unique, Asian characteristics?”

Judging by the photos of the site shown in the Xinhua report, the Venetian copy looks deserted just two days after its opening, with one, lone Gondola cruising the middle of the shallow canal.

Photos: CFP

The post Look Like Venice? This is China’s Latest White Elephant… in Dalian appeared first on The Nanfang.