Victor “Trey” Trahan may be the best-known architect in Baton Rouge, Louisiana (130 kilometers northwest of New Orleans), where his firm has built cultural, academic, and religious buildings of unusual clarity and grace. But an architect, he says, “has to go where the work is.” So last year, Trahan sent one of his employees to establish a small office in Shenyang—a "second-tier" city in northeast China, but one that is very large compared to cities in the United States and is 40 times bigger than Baton Rouge. (Trahan decided to skip Beijing and Shanghai, because they are already served by many other American architecture firms).
Trahan's Shenyang-based employee, Teddy Tu, presented the firm’s portfolio to developers and local design institutes. Soon the firm was invited to participate in a paid competition to design a 408,775-square-meter, mixed-use development in Zhengzhou for the Henan Hongguang Industry Group. Trahan's proposal was selected and is now moving through the approvals process. The project is scheduled to break ground next year, becoming Trahan’s first in China. It is projected to cost $880 million.
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