This one makes me laugh. China has some of the most unique, innovative and avant-garde urban architecture in the world. Much of it has been commissioned from foreign architectural firms working I would suspect with Chinese partners. Little of it has much to do with traditional Chinese architectural motifs and a number of structures are ridiculed for their design and are considered eye-sores. They also cost a lot of money that could have been better spent on more mundane structures to meet pressing human needs. The buildings themselves seem to symbolize an era when the flush of spending on infrastructure and the availability of funding made for a certain exuberance in architectural design. Now as China begins to re-balance its economy and focus its spiritual culture on core Chinese and socialist values, Xi Jinping has cautioned against this trend and suggested that the era of weird buildings end. In response to untrammeled growth and wasting of resources, both monetary and physical, Beijing plans to implement building ordinances to govern the citys building size, style, color and materials, and allow urban planning a greater hand in creating public spaces and a better cityscape for residents. Now who can fault all of that, the redirection of urban planning and resources to meet human needs not the extravagant whims of an urban elite. Well I can tell you, the US media. All this is, horror upon horror, stifling creativity and free expression, another example of the heavy hand of Chinese authoritarianism. LOL. Compare it to the situation in the US where there is little or no innovation in urban architectural design due to zoning and other regulations and tight money. China has been a haven for those architects who wanted to implement bold ideas, not the US. And the US urban landscape is in a state of decay and disintegration in most cities. They are not characterized by flamboyant new buildings. But thats the state of all commentary on China in the Western media. Always look for and fabricate the worst possible way of spinning a story to make China look bad and demonize the dragon. cnn/2014/12/05/world/asia/beijing-weird-buildings/
Posted on: Fri, 05 Dec 2014 16:28:34 +0000
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