A firsthand account of the Chinese capital's struggles to preserve its past in the face of rapid development and Olympic glory. With a gross floor area of 3,875,000 square feet, the project had already gone through 36 master plans by the time the district government enlisted SOHO in early 2006. In the end, the original grid of hutong and their names were retained. Still, the government wanted the entire area remade quickly—by October, 2007—a deadline SOHO pushed back to approximately 2010. Nearly a half-mile long, the main thoroughfare has already been converted to a pedestrian shopping mall, centered by trolleys
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.
I live in an old courtyard home shared by several families on a hutong (lane) in Dazhalan, Beijing’s most venerable neighborhood, located just south of Tiananmen Square.
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