MCLC: Shenyang's edifice complex

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Shenyang’s edifice complex
Source: China Real Time blog, WJU (1/19/15)
A Chinese City With a Towering Edifice Complex
While many a Chinese city has spent lavishly on questionable additions to its skyline, the northeastern hub of Shenyang has distinguished itself with its love of oddball architecture. It’s latest project is the Pearl of the North, a 111-story office tower that will dwarf New York’s One World Trade Center, as WSJ’s Dinny McMahon reports:
To the less charitable, the building will stand as an 1,863-foot mixed metaphor. At its pinnacle, a giant sphere, representing a pearl, will sit, glowing gold at night. That light is meant to evoke molten steel in a nod to Shenyang’s rust-belt heritage.
During the day, the thin building is designed to evoke a guzheng, a traditional Chinese string instrument. The main entrances on ground level flare out to suggest the tents used by the nomads that once roamed the area.
The nuance is lost on some area citizens.
“I didn’t get how the design represents Shenyang until you explained it,” says Song Yuanyuan, a 36-year-old woman laden with designer store shopping bags. “Otherwise, it’d just look like tall buildings in some other big cities.”
…Analysts call the tower rising in this metropolis of eight million symptomatic of China’s edifice complex. The office vacancy rate in Shenyang reached 28.7% in the third quarter in 2014, according to data from property consultancy DTZ Research. “Shenyang already has dozens of skyscrapers and I don’t think there is the demand for them,” says Huo Ke, an architecture professor at Shenyang’s Northeast University.
Wang Guanhua, Baoneng’s project manager, says the tower won’t be a waste because of how quickly the city is growing. “I think the city needs more high buildings. Our building is characteristic and the location is the best, too.”
by denton.2 at osu.edu on January 19, 2015
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