The newest issue of Volume has an excerpt of on of the chapters of our book: about the millionaires on the artificial island ‘Little Venice’ in Changsha. The issue, which deals with the privatization of our cities, is out now. More on the theme here:

What used to be collective care is rapidly becoming private responsibility. At least in the West. Is privatization the one fits all solution to every (financial) problem? Can addressing collective needs be thought of as the sum total of numerous private initiatives? And will the ‘retreat’ of government and state be compensated by other ways to organize the complex organism called society?

You can now buy our book worldwide in the bookstores listed below.
And of course you can buy the book online.

ASIA
Singapore: Basheer Graphic Books

Hong Kong: China Publishers Services

Beijing, CN: Timezone 8
Shanghai, CN: Garden Books
Shenzhen, CN: Stage

EUROPE
Brussel, BE: BOZAR Shop
Brussel, BE:  Don Quichote – Passaporta Bookshop

Geneva, CH: Archigraphy Bookshop Sarl
Zürich, CH: Hochparterre Bücher

Berlin, DE: Buecherbogen
Berlin, DE: Pro QM
Bremen, DE: Missink Link
Koln, DE: Walter Koenig

München, DE: L. Werner
Münster, DE: Extrabuch
Stuttgart, DE: Fachbuchhandel Karl Kraemer

Aarhus, DK: Student Bookshop Aarhus
Copenhagen, DK: Danish Center for Architecture
Virum, DK: Philip Glaser Books

Barcelona, ES: Cooperativa d’Arquitectes
Madrid, ES: Mairea Libros
Madrid, ES: Libreria Naos

Bordeaux, FR: Librairie Mollat S.E.
Nantes, FR: Librairie Medicale
Paris, FR: Librairie Flammarion
Paris, FR: Librairie du Moniteur
Toulouse, FR: Ombres Blanches

Almere, NL: Selexyz Scheltema
Amsterdam, NL: Athenaeum Boekhandel
Amsterdam, NL: Erasmus Antiquariaat
Amsterdam, NL: Boekhandel Minerva
Amsterdam, NL: Architectura + Natura
Amsterdam, NL: Boekhandel Van Rossum
Amsterdam, NL: Java Bookshop
Amsterdam, NL: Zwart Op Wit
Bilthoven, NL: Bilthovense Boekhandel
Delft, NL:  Waltman,
Den Haag, NL: Van Stockum,
Den Haag, NL:   Paagman
Den Haag, NL: Selexyz Verwijs
Deventer, NL: Boekhandel Colmschate
Geldrop, NL: Van Grinsven
Haarlem, NL: Athenaeum Boekhandel
Haarlem, NL: Kennemer Boekhandel
Houten, NL: Bruna B.V.
Leeuwarden, NL: Boekhandel vd Velde
Leiden, NL: Selexyz Kooyker
Maastricht, NL: Selexyz Dominicanen
Rotterdam, NL: NAi Booksellers
Rotterdam, NL:  Selexyz Donner
Rotterdam, NL: Van Gennep Boekhandel
Rosmalen, NL: Boekhandel de Omslag
Terneuzen, NL: Boekhandel van de Sande
Utrecht, NL:  Selexyz Broese

Milano, IT: Libr Ulrico Hoepli

Lisboa, PT: RBMDC Livros

Stockholm, SE: Architektur Museet

London, UK: Artdata London

USA
Contoocook NH: YBP Library Services
New York, NY: Philip Galgiani
New York, NY: Rizzoli Bookstores Inc.
San Francisco, CA: William Stout Architectural

OCEANIA
Melbourne, AUS: Architext Melbourne
Melbourne, AUS: DA Information Services
Sydney, AUS: Architext Sydney

ONLINE
You can order our book online at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de and through our publisher SUN Architecture.

Bookstores interested in selling the book, please contact Marlies Dijkstra / SUN Publishers:
m.dijkstra@uitgeverijsun.nl, tel: + 31 (0)20 5218939

Image: Rendering Chongqing Chaotianmen, Moshe Safdie architects

We all spend useless time on the web. For example with ‘liking’ or commenting on posts on Facebook. That’s what I did as well on December 2nd, when I commented ‘unbelievably uuugly and a total Sands knock off’ on Moshe Safdie’s scheme for Chongqing Chaotianmen.With ‘Sands’, I referred to the Singapore Marina Sands, a project that Safdie did a few years ago, and that has quite some resemblances to it:

Image:  Marina Bay Sands, Singapore, Moshe Safdie Architects

That’s that, back to work..

At least, that’s what I thought. Our friend Bert van Dijk, Shanghai-based China correspondent for Financieel Dagblad and author of the amazing book Along the Yellow River (Langs de Gele Rivier) wanted to write a piece about the new development in  Chongqing. He was curious about my comment. ‘Would you be willing to deepen your critique a bit?’, was his question. There you had it: now I had to motivate my ‘dislike’.
After a cup of coffee, I sent him an e-mail:

‘First of all, it is an almost literal copy of their Marina Sands Bay scheme in Singapore. Secondly, the metaphor of the sailing ships is to0 cheap to be true, especially when it is combined with the roof garden’.

‘Creating a huge north-south orientated residential complex because of market demands, and then calling it the sails of a ship because it happens to be next to a river is a bit too simple for me, especially when you work for such an interesting client. It seems the architect did nothing to relate the building in a true way to its magnificent location in one of the most thrilling square kilometers of Asia.’

‘The interesting thing is that Singapore once again proves to be the example for Chinese inland cities. But time has come for these cities to develop their own architectural icons – and stay away from letting the architects repeat themselves.’

Pretty decent comment, I thought. Bert wrote a niece piece on his blog about the background of the development of the site. He shared it on Facebook. And then other people started to share it. And then other media started to pick up Bert’s piece. Shanghaiist called Safdie a ‘lazy architect’, Architizer spent a blog on the case and there were even intellectual property rights blogs discussing the question if the design was a copy or not – and what to think of it. Be careful what you wish for, could be the conclusion. But at least I made my point, and people started talking about it.

Yesterday, I was again wasting time on the web…when the design below got my attention:

Image: rendering Renren building, Chongqing, architect unknown

According to Chinasmack, the building resembles a double ‘ren’ (people) charachter:

At Danzishi on the south bank of the Yangtze River in Nanan district of Chongqing city is a new building whose outer shape resembles the two [Chinese] characters of “人人” ["people people"]. This architectural design has a height of 280 meters, with the design of the building using the Chongqing city’s “人人重庆” ["Everyone Chongqing"] symbol/logo as reference, and is a multi-purpose building combining restaurants, entertainment, leisure, and other functions. This building is expected to formally begin construction in 2013. The two “people” when arranged this way also resembles the character qing character (庆) in Chongqing.

This time, I did not even need to be critical: it was the Chinese netizens who totally criticized the building:

A Netizen from Wuhan was clear:

Extremely garish! Truly no sense of taste, what a waste of money!

‘Brother 19260817′ from Chongqing commented:

Truly bursting with ugliness.

And someone from Guangdong even wrote:

Can it be uglier? The appearance and design of the CCTV building is actually very good, and those netizens who criticize it probably aren’t really questioning the design. However, it can be imagined just how miserable the designer for this building is, definitely having designed it according to the ideas of the government leaders. Fuck.

And then there are even more tasteless comments, that you can find back on Chinasmack.
My comment would actually be similar to the one I made for the Jiefangbei scheme presented by Safdie: it seems to be a knock off. Look at this design Bjarke Ingels Group made a few years ago for a hotel in Shanghai:

Image: rendering Ren Hotel, Shanghai, BIG Architects

There we go again..

Last week, our new exhibition Allmetropolis opened in the Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism & Architecture. The show, which is located in venue B10 in OCT Loft, shows a comparison of the urban areas of Shenzhen and Flevoland, the largest mainmade island in the world. The main argument of the project: what would happen if we turn Flevoland into a Special Economic Zone?
To be continued…

Team:
Concept & Research: Michiel Hulshof & Daan Roggeveen
Research assistance: Xia Yixuan
Translation: Song Xinlin, Amanda Wan
Concept graphic design: Job, Joris & Marieke

Venue:
B10, OCT, Nanshan, Shenzhen
Exhibition from 8 December 2011 – 18 February 2012

Allmetropolis in the media:
VisionUnion (CN)
Architectenweb (NL)

Allmetropolis is made possible with the generous support of the city of Almere

Starting Thursday 8 December, Go West Project will present a new research project during the Shenzhen/Hong Kong Biennale of Architecture. Central theme: What would happen if Europe created a Special Economic Zones following the Chinese model? To anwer that question, we compare two regions that started their urban growth at the end of the 1970s: one, Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in China, the other, the manmade island of Flevoland in the Netherlands.

Over the years, both urban regions have developed in a completely different manner. The New Towns in Flevoland has a population of 400,000, for large part commuters working in the Randstad and looking for a suburban living environment. Shenzhen, for its part, has grown into ‘the factory of the world’ with more than 10 million migrant workers from all over China.

In the exhibition Allmetropolis, Go West Project compares policy, economy, residential areas and future plans of the two regions. It then poses the question what would happen in Flevoland would implement China’s successful model for growth, meaning it would transform itself into a Special Economic Zone with preferential tax and other policies compared to the surrounding area.

This research project addresses consequences of current international developments where Europe is increasingly looking at China for financial help to solve the debt crisis. When Europe wants to attract Chinese investors, it’s not more than logical to have a close look at Chinese models for investment and growth.

Venue: B10, OCT, Nanshan, Shenzhen
Exhibition from 8 December 2011 – 18 February 2012

From the Netherlands, you can also order the book at Bruna.com, Bol.com, Nai Booksellers and through our publisher: SUN Architecture.

On Tuesday 29 November, Michiel opened a lecture series about China on Delft University of Technology with an introduction on China’s emerging megacities. The university published a stream showing the full lecture that you can watch online.

In the 2011 Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, Go West Project puts into perspective the economic, social, spatial and ecological developments of Shenzhen and Flevoland. This forms the starting point of a research that shows the possibilities and opportunities of using the Shenzhen model in a European context…

Last week we reported on the different urban landscapes we encountered while traveling from Hong Kong to Wuhan. When taking the plane from Wuhan to Shanghai, you  experience more or less the same contrasts, while landing at Hongqiao Airport – a fragmented landscape of industry, golf courses, villas, high rises, empty lands and residential areas. Welcome to the City of Fragmentation.

As part of the lecture series ‘Under the Skin’ we will present our book in the University of Hong Kong, Shanghai Study Centre on November 7.

In a lecture called Canary Wharf in Central China – The transformation of China’s New Megacities, we will discuss the way cities prepare for the transformation from industry-based economy to services based economy. To prepare for this change, cities in central and western China are all developing CBD’s (Central Business Districts).

In Wuhan we investigated how these CBD’s come into being and what are the processes and reasons behind its development. We describe the way urban development is used as a tool to attract foreign direct investment – the city as an economic powerhouse – and the struggle between cities to be as attractive as possible. Consultants like McKinsey play a key role in this development, as do planning departments of local governments.

As we describe in our book:

‘The strength of Chinese cities lies to a large degree in projecting of an image of success before anything has actually been achieved. You constantly feel yourself surrounded by the future, by virtual skylines or by completed buildings, ready for future use. Together, these form a futuristic and hope-inspiring décor.’

At the same time we show that this process is part of the transformation of Chinese cities into more or less generic cities – with architecture produced by firms like SOM, HOK and Gensler leading to skylines that are alike the world over.

‘The first designs of the large towers evoke the feeling you have seen them somewhere before, in another business district in a different large town, in Asia or somewhere else on the planet.’

Date: 7 November, 7.30pm
Venue: University of Hong Kong, Shanghai Study Centre,
Adress: No. 298 North Suzhou Road, 2nd Floor, Hongkou District
Entry: Free

Our book will be for sale after the lecture for 300 RMB; cash payment only.

Two seemingly unrelated articles about Chinese cities appeared in the papers last week. Yesterday, South China Morning Post wrote about the fact that more and more of China’s upper class want to leave the country. They plan to emigrate to improve the education conditions of their children, to flee the shady air and food quality and to secure their properties.

Last week, the New York Times reported about a landgrab in Beijing. A five year old gated community at the fringe of the city has to make way for a road widening project. Its inhabitants are told to leave their houses within three weeks. Although shocking, this is a quite regular practice in China. However, it mostly happens to farmers in the countryside, or to people like the protagonist of our book, Mr Sun. The people in Beijing who have to leave their houses are doctors, accountants, retired government officials.

That is obviously the reason for the increase in emigration plans of the upper middle class. The Beijing case shows nobody can rely on the rule of law in China – neither a retired official, or mr Sun. The consequence is that the people who can afford it – in a lot of cases the country’s most talented people -  leave China thus creating a serious brain drain.

This is an image of Google Earth of the city of Amsterdam from a height of 7km. It shows the inner city of the Dutch capital, its canal structure and its 19th century expansions surrounding it. Vice-mayor Maarten van Poelgeest is the man who is in charge of spatial planning in this well-structured city. Last week it was our task to introduce mr Van Poelgeest to the dynamic conditions of Chinese cities by making a study trip. We traveled through the Pearl River Delta, from Hong Kong to Wuhan where mr Van Poelgeest attended the ISOCARP Conference, together with the deputy director of the urban planning department, Zef Hemel, who delivered a key note speech. In the conference, Amsterdam won the Award of Excellence for their Structural Vision 2040.

Of course, these trips are about understanding cities, but also about comparing. Let’s make a cross section of the urban areas that we visited, also from a height of 7km.

We started off on Hong Kong island (above), one of the densest built places on earth. The Floor Area Ratio in the city reaches levels of 5 to 7. This is mainly because the city decided to keep 75% of its land green. In 10 minutes from Occupy Central to Occupy Beach!

At Hong Kong University we discussed the extreme condition of the Hong Kong / Shenzhen border (above), where the city of Hong Kong still maintains the buffer zone that after 60 years of being a no-go area turned into a sort of eco-enclave between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. In stark contrast, the city of Shenzhen expanded to the absolute edges, so the two political systems meet each other represented by nature (HK) and high rise (China).

In Shenzhen, the heart of the PRD with 13 million inhabitants, we visited – amongst others – the BYD headquarters. In 16 years this company turned from a start-up to a 170.000 employee mega-company with 9.9% of its shares hold by Warren Buffet. The company has its headquarters in an industrial area in the north east of the city (above) in an urban condition that HKU researcher Joshua Bolchover described to as a ‘scrambled egg’. On the campus, 20,000 BYD employees live and work together.

The high speed train connects Shenzhen and Guangzhou in roughly an hour. In Guangzhou, we took the subway to the Xiaoguwei University Island (above), a recently developed area of 20 square kilometer with 10 universities where 100,000 students and 100,000 university employees live, study and work together in futuristic condition. The island has 3,5 million square meter of indoor space and can finally accomodate 400,000 people. On the island, some urban villages remain, that provide all kind of low profile facilities to the students. On Saturday night the villages form lively neighborhoods with restaurants and night markets being packed.

Finally we ended our trip in the city of Wuhan, the capital of Wuhan that celebrates the 100th birthday of the nationalist revolution that ended the rule of the emperors. The city used the celebrations to spend 3 billion on urban development: a 1911 museum, a monument, infrastructure and other buildings. Two years ago, the city planners were fully focused on the development of the Wangjiadun Central Business District. However, the planners of the Wuhan Planning and Development Institute (WPDI) shifted their focus southwards, to the lake area in the district of Wuchang. ‘The CBD is not developing fast enough.’
In the east part of the city we finally visited a new development area where the urban and the rural clash: this is where Le Corbusier and Mr Sun are confronted with each other…

After the exhibition in the Beijing International Book Fair in September, our book is now part of the Best Book Lounge exhibition in Shanghai. The exhibition shows a selection of Dutch books on art, architecture and design. The 120+ books on display show the oeuvre of renowned artists, designers and architects from the Netherlands, and present the best of Dutch book design. The exhibition is part of the Shanghai Creative Industry Week and takes place at Hong Fang (Red Town), 578 Huaihai Xi Lu, Shanghai, from 26/10 to 1/11.

Last Sunday, 16 October we launched our book in Shanghai’s Glamour Bar. After an introduction by the Consul General of the Netherlands, mr Peter Potman, we shared stories and ideas with an audience of over 100 people. Presenting the book in our hometown Shanghai was the last in a series of presentations in Europe and China. It was also quite an experience: could we tell an audience of both Chinese and foreigners living in China something they did not know yet? Judging on the reactions afterwards, we think we managed to give the audience some insight in our work, our ideas, our trips and our book.

Photography: Frans Schellekens

On Sunday 16 October, architect Daan Roggeveen and China correspondent Michiel Hulshof will present their new book How the City Moved to Mr Sun – China’s New Megacities. They will share their stories and pictures from developing Chinese megacities like Wuhan (10 million inhabitants), Shijiazhuang (9 million) and Chongqing (33 million), that are transforming at breakneck pace into the big brothers and sisters of global cities like Sao Paolo, London and Moscow. Here, China is constructing the biggest urban society the world has ever seen.

Venue : Glamour Bar
Address : 6/F, No.5 The Bund (corner of Guangdong Lu), Shanghai
Time : 4pm
Entry : RMB 75 (includes a drink), students RMB 20