The Uglies and the Marvels

Symbolism Buildings

Many of the uglies are produced in the boom years in China. I worked in Shanghai between 2007 – 2015. I was the founder and managing director of JAS Architects. We fought constantly for good taste in architecture with the local developers and government officials. As the country rose economically, the demand to show off their newly acquired wealth through architecture and the government requirement to display its achievements in buildings came out of almost every design commission.

I have to say. I did stand my ground defending good architecture against bad taste. I educated my local clients to the best of my ability. I’ll blog the projects we did in JAS in the next post.

The uglies

Money worship to the extreme.

It supposes to be the gateway to a new technology-oriented satellite city. It was mocked as the tight underpants with snowshoes.

Hahaha…………… It has to be a conspiracy. Don’t miss it if you are in Shanghai.

The PingAn Insurance Building in Pudong, Shanghai was designed by an American architect under the demand by the head of the Insurance company to show power and wealth. I guess the architect must agree with LeBron James, shut up and make money. Rumor (truth in China) has it, the head of PingAn was formerly a chauffeur with low education but rise to power through connections, Guanxi. He specifically wanted hundreds of Greek columns to guard the building and a Roman dome to top it.

My college professor 鄭時臨, he was on the Shanghai city planning committee at the time, fought hard to reject the design, only to be silenced by high ranking city officials.

I wonder how the structure was calculated. Well, China does have an excessive amount of steel inventory from massive overproduction.

I thought this was a Photoshop-ed meme when I first saw it. Hell no. It is a real building. The epiphany of the peasant’s imagination.

Speechless………..

More speechless…………………………

The marvels

World Trade Center Oculus in New York by the great Spanish structure master Santiago Calatrava. The symbolism here is obvious, the soaring spirit from ashes.

I was once asked for an opinion on the new Beijing airport designed by the late Zaha Hadid. My answer was “a beautiful display of a sliced giant vagina”. After years of dick/skyscraper competition by male architects, Zaha claimed a place for women.

Marina Bay Sands should not be categorized as Marvels. It’s simply bold. I put it here for its marvelous view on the top and its symbolism to a place.

There are not many direct symbolism buildings in the world, less alone marvels. But the silver bullet-shaped building phenomenon baffles me. It’s in London, Barcelona, and Tokyo, and who knows anywhere else. The ultimate symbolism, the sex.