Duplitecture: China’s White Houses
At 99% Invisible, Roman Mars, Avery Trufelman and Bianca Bosker look at the phenomenon of...
architecture
Beijing Officials Build Mini-Kremlin (Updated)
As officials are repeatedly exhorted to remember the lessons of the Soviet Union’s collapse,...
The Tales of Two Temples
At Sinosphere, Didi Kirsten Tatlow describes efforts to preserve Beijing’s Ming-dynasty...
Cake Millionaire at Home in His Six Castles
AFP’s Tom Hancock explains how a Chongqing bakery tycoon is defying the hordes of...
Architect Wants To Turn Tiananmen Square Green
ABC News reports via Spiegel International that Chinese architect Ma Yansong has “taken the...
The Rise of Copycat Architecture in China
Many have mused on the phenomenon of China’s copycat buildings, as well as entire facsimile towns. There are numerous news reports and accounts from bemused tourists who have stumbled upon a slice of Austria in Guangdong,...
Chengdu Opens World’s Largest Building
CNN reports that The New Century Global Center – at 1.7 million square meters, Chinese officials say it is the “largest freestanding building in the world” – opened in Chengdu last week: Though the words...
Architectural Piracy “Could Be Quite Exciting” (Updated)
Architect Zaha Hadid has become a star in China with her designs for the Guangzhou Opera House and the recently opened Galaxy SOHO complex in Beijing. A side effect of this success, Kevin Holden Platt reports at Spiegel Online,...
Uncertain Future for Architectural Treasures
Breakneck development and urbanization campaigns often threaten the relics reflecting China’s ancient architectural tradition. An article from Caixin takes us to the northern province of Shanxi, a “treasure trove of...
Podcast: 99% Invisible on Kowloon Walled City
99% Invisible—”a tiny radio show about design” and architecture—explores the legendary Kowloon Walled City. The Walled City was torn down in 1993, but has been featured in Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Supremacy,...
Old Building Restoration Taking a Hold in China
Starting from the reinvention of Dashilar, a historical neighborhood in Beijing, innovative architects are racking their brains to balance city development and cultural preservation. From Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore at The Los...
An Architect’s Vision: Bare Elegance in China
The New York Times’ Jane Perlez profiles architect Wang Shu, whose selection as China’s first Pritzker Prize winner in February received a somewhat mixed reaction from some of his countrymen. In awarding this year’s...
Iconic CCTV Headquarters Completed
China Central Television’s headquarters building is finally complete. 10 years after design approval and 8 years after construction began, China’s state-run television broadcaster is finally ready to set-up shop in...
Foreign Architects Riding China’s Wave
For The New York Times Magazine, Brook Larmer highlights the flood of American and other foreign architects that have set their sights on China in recent years as development prospects have waned in the west: Over the past three...
Netizens React to Pritzker Announcement
The New Yorker writes about the reaction in China to Monday’s news that Wang Shu had won architecture’s prestigious Pritzker Prize: While the pronouncement produced the obligatory congratulations here in the West, it...
Chinese Architect Wang Shu Wins Pritzker Prize
The Pritzker Prize, the highest honor in architecture, has been awarded to the first-ever Chinese recipient, Wang Shu. From the Washington Post: The 49-year-old architect joins Frank Gehry, Tadao Ando, Renzo Piano and Eduardo...
Land Under Shanghai, 50+ Other Cities Sinking
Unsettling eight-metre cracks in the pavement around Shanghai Tower are the latest reminder of the city’s subsidence problem. While the tower’s planners insist that everything is under control, Caixin points out that...
Razing History
In the Atlantic, Jonathan Kaiman writes about the destruction of Beijing’s historic neighborhoods, including the hutongs surrounding Zhongnanhai, the central leadership compound, which were on a protected list compiled in...
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