Shenzhen | SZHKBiennale snapshots
MovingCities spend last week in Shenzhen attending the opening of the 2009 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (SZHKB). On Sunday, we went sightseeing on the biennale's main spot: Shenzhen's Civic Square, the political and bureaucratic heart of the city. Snapshots of accidental encounters with installations.
A quick follow-up on our Shenzhen-trip of mid-November, as MovingCities is on the brink of returning to the city. In the third and final installment of our PRD-under-construction series (previous Opera House and the Pearl River Tower), we feature the Rem Koolhaas/OMA Shenzhen Stock Exchange project. Close-ups and bird's eye.
Is it possible to design a skyscraper that harvests energy from its environment? SOM's Pearl River Tower in Guangzhou claims so. From 2010 on this tower will be the headquarters of the Guangdong Tobacco Company. Snapshots from a curvilenair Zero-energy building under construction.
As always, no better way to extract oneself from the chaotic and bustling streetlife of the Chinese city than to explore it from above. From rooftops, remaining always in the center of the urban scenery, MovingCities explored from four locations Guangzhou's massive horizon-filling panorama of architectural projects of all stamps. Some bird's eye time.
After spending our Saturday on the Guangzhou University Island, on Sunday we took a cab to North-Eastern part of town; Tianhe District and its Central Business District. First stop was Teemall, the city's largest shopping center allegedly averaging 300,000 visitors a day. A metro ride to the South, the second stop was SunYat Sen Univeristy University - Guangzhou South Campus - at the banks of the Pearl River, ...
We spend our first day in Guangzhou meandering in-between the gigantic Guangzhou University Town campus and the remnants of an adjacent urban village. Under construction, the island will accommodate 10 top universities and 250,000 students, while, under destruction, folk, improvised and narrow-lane architectures are disappearing. Jiang Jun and Gabrielle Marks walked us around.