FUTURISTIC GROOVES

As I will visit Shanghai this summer I was reading upon an article which reflects the China’s current architecture evolvement.

Shanghai, China’s commercial capital is starting to take on the chic of Paris, the sophistication of New York and the futuristic vibes of Tokyo. It already boasts the world’s fastest train (the Maglev that takes eight minutes to run the 30 km from Pudong airport into the city), the longest underwater pedestrian tunnel (under the Huangpu river) and the world’s tallest hotel-the 88-storey Grand Hyatt, complete with the world’s highest swimming pool and longest laundry chute.

Most interesting, it has Xintiandi, a two-hectare (nine-acre) complex of hip restaurants, bars and shops in an open, elegant, low-rise style that cost $170m to develop and is one of the first examples of China preserving its own architecture. Xintiandi’s houses are traditional shikumen (literally “stone gate”) built along narrow alleys that middle-class professionals flocked to for a sense of community and safety, and which made up 60% of the city’s residential housing between the 1880s and the 1940s.

Chinese architecture has rarely been this confident. In the old days, it was strictly governed by the emperor, who imposed restrictions on height, colour and design. Now China has the money and the talent-foreign architects who are now begging to work there, returning Chinese and home-grown graduates-to be different.

It is a huge opportunity. The current political system can still command huge resources; for those with government backing, there are few planning restrictions; and given the scale of internal migration-one-third of all Chinese will move into a new home over the next decade-China will be building whole new cities in the coming years. As long as it makes commercial sense, Mr Lo hazards that the mainland may well tear down a lot of the ugly buildings it has thrown up during the past 20 years and start again-which is exactly what happened in Hong Kong. And as their new model, China’s architects could proudly take Shanghai.