Architectural Digest is joining the flurry of China coverage in the run-up to the Olympics with a special feature that includes a profile of a luxury villa in Chengdu:
Chinese consumers are buying ever-larger quantities of designer clothing, expensive cars, vintage wine, pricey watches and high-end art—China is the third-largest market for luxury goods in the world—and they want to build ever more lavish houses to put them in. Interestingly, most new owners opt for copies of Mediterranean villas or French châteaux and want to fill them with reproductions of English and French antiques, feeling that luxury and European tradition are synonymous; but the owners of a new house in Sichuan Province were willing to take a different approach.
It also includes a slideshow of 19th century photographs of Chinese life.
(Thanks to China Beat for the link.)
