Modern Shanghai combines the soul of Houston with the body of Las Vegas. In Pudong, the city’s booming financial district, flashing trails of colored lights race up and down the shafts of office towers, as if they were casinos. One freshly minted skyscraper, Aurora Plaza, has a fa√ßade of gold reflective glass that at night becomes even more garish, turning into a multistory L.E.D. screen on which huge smiling faces cinematically dissolve into bright corporate logos. The sky line of China’s largest city has become a strangely exuberant version of the “Blade Runner” aesthetic, with simple geometries and sharp lines cutting into the sky; it may not be beautiful but, in its staggering scale and intensity, it certainly is awe-inspiring.
See also Xintiandi.com.
