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In a pair of essays, two RECORD editors look at the city's rapid transformation, try to make sense of the current boom, and ponder its future. Has any place changed so much, so quickly? In our age of instant gratification, new cities coalesce at the touch of a button: Dubai has shot up out of the desert sands beside the Arabian Gulf like a digital dreamscape, but it has built its towers on a blank slate (or shifting sand) as an investment for an international population yet to come. Beijing, by contrast, has reinvented itself, from a beehive of neighborhoods

Ubiquitous, pervasive, the night air seems palpable, like a surreal force blanketing the city. While generated in part by coal-fired power plants, and in part by other industries (including the dust kicked up by construction sites), the haze brings a gloomy quality to most days that masks its real impact on health.

In a pair of essays, two RECORD editors look at the city's rapid transformation, try to make sense of the current boom, and ponder its future. What happened to all those blue-mirrored-glass buildings that popped up everywhere in Chinese cities in the 1990s? Where are the white-bathroom-tile facades I remember so well from my first trip to Beijing in 1995? They’re probably still standing, but they no longer dominate Beijing’s cityscape the way they did just a decade ago. Today, they sit in the shadow of some of the most daring and sophisticated architecture going up anywhere in the world.

Marvin J. Malecha, FAIA, describes the contemporary moment in architecture as one of uncertainty and potential, with previous dogmas delimiting how architecture is practiced no longer governing the profession. He also contends that the American Institute of Architects needs to become nimble enough as an organization to help its membership adapt to new realities of practice. Malecha hopes to shape it into a more adaptable organization when he assumes the AIA presidency next year. (Read an interview with George Miller, 2010 AIA president elect, here) Photo courtesy NC State University College of Design “I have been watching the architectural office

When asked how he would improve the American Institute of Architects, George H. Miller, FAIA, offers a mantra. “Communication, communication, communication,” he says, insisting that the organization needs to evolve into a stronger public voice for good design. A partner at Pei, Cobb, Freed & Partners, Miller recently received an opportunity to put his philosophy into practice. At this year’s annual AIA convention, he was elected to take over as the institute’s president in 2010. Image courtesy Pei, Cobb, Freed & Partners "We've always been concerned with environmental design, but now I think the pressure to step it up is

Beyond the ephemeral glitter of a world's fair, the 2008 Zaragoza Expo, which runs through September 14th in the northern Spanish city, is architecturally memorable for only two or three innovative buildings. The compact 60-acre site along the Ebro River is designed to become a future urban district. Pavilions for participating countries (missing are Britain, Canada and the USA) and Spain's regions recede into the background with organic forms discretely designed by the Spanish firm ACXT. A landmark Water Tower structure by Enrique de Teresa, though organized as a double spiral of ramps around its central void, looks like an

“I do like the grandiose.” I had been to China frequently, but somehow, until a few months ago, never to Beijing. Like many cities in China, it’s intimidatingly vast and growing like Topsy. Unlike other cities, though, it is laid out with an orthogonal monumentality, with vast boulevards, widely spaced buildings, and a thick aura of imperium. Photos © Clifford Pearson Walls, courtyards, and lanes of different sizes define both the residential areas of the Forbidden City (top) and the common hutong (above). The prototype for the city as a whole is the famous Forbidden City, described by Marco Polo

The Chinese have a longstanding genius for domestic architecture, and a visit to the hutong of Beijing—the fast-disappearing neighborhoods of courtyard houses, laced with small lanes and commerce, sanctuaries of both intimacy and variety in the midst of a city too rapidly doing away with the best of its public character—affirms the singularity and brilliance of their historic accomplishment. Such places offer an alternative vision to the Modernist constructs that shape the city today and provide an irreplaceable element in the urban repertoire that demands not simply to be conserved but extended. Photo © Clifford Pearson Hutong are places of

Where to go and what to see in Beijing: Personal suggestions for architects from people shaping the city and members of our staff. Robert Bernell Owner, Timezone 8 Photo courtesy Timezone 8 Robert, Owner of Timezone 8 Robert Bernell owns the café and bookstore Timezone8, located in Beijing’s art hub, Factory 798. Bernell describes his enterprise as the “best café in Beijing,” noting its thousands of art and design books and a large array of magazines, as well as fair-trade, organic coffees. The bookstore is located across from the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, which Bernell recommends for its collection