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| Full exposure |
| Anurag Viswanath / Jul 17, 2010, 00:09 IST |
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The Shanghai Expo is a spectacle. But so is a lot of Shanghai itself. As the changing drama of urban China’s physical landscape unfolds into a story at once plausible and fallible, Anurag Viswanath sends in this report
If the Beijing Olympics signalled China’s coming of age, then with the Shanghai Expo the country is reinforcing the message. The city at the mouth of the Yangtze has been all spruced up for the Expo, which began May this year and is expected to attract 70 million visitors during its six-month run. Given the recent Foxconn Technology suicides in Shenzhen and the drought in Yunnan, many are questioning Shanghai’s image makeover (and its social costs), and the money (an estimated $40 billion, though the official budget is $4 billion) that has been poured in to refurbish its image and revamp the region’s tourist offerings.
Many in Shanghai don’t care much for the Beijing-led media blitz, or for waking up to a city plastered with the ubiquitous ‘Shanghai Welcomes You’. Behind the Expo glitter are unsavoury truths such as cultural venues being constrained or bans on such things as wearing pyjamas in public, a unique fad in Shanghai.
But if China wanted to wow the world, it certainly has succeeded to an extent. It has brought into focus China’s new architectural icons. The Expo, centred on the theme of ‘Better City, Better Life’, showcases some stunning cutting-edge design. Organisers claim that most materials used in the Expo can be recycled, and zero-emissions vehicles are being used for transport. The Expo site also boasts a 4.7 megawatt solar power system.
China’s own pavilion, the Oriental Crown, symbolises the union of heaven and earth. Designed by He Jingtang, dean of the School of Architecture at the South China University of Technology, it incorporates green elements in its exterior — it has a temperature-buffer zone, and its roof is geared for harvesting rainwater. The structure is also laden with symbolism — the 56 traditional dougong brackets that it is made of represent China’s 56 minority groups, painting a picture of harmony that the Uighurs of Xinjiang or the Tibetans may not attest to.
Britain’s surreal Seed Cathedral has been designed by Thomas Heatherwick, best known for his public art installations. The grand six-storey structure is covered with 60,000 transparent, 7.5 metre acrylic filaments. These act as sunlight transportation systems, bathing the interior of the structure in warm summer sunlight. The swaying filaments add drama and contain a green message as well — the tip of each rod contains a seed from a plant threatened by extinction.
The Korean Pavilion is drawing crowds for its innovative design. Designed by local architectural studio Mass Studies, it incorporates the Hangeul (Korean alphabet) into the design. The building is shaped like an alphabet; covering the wall are tiles with different words, alternating with coloured tiles created by Korean artist Ik Joong Kang. Each piece will be sold for charity.
Also driving home the green message are the French pavilion with its solar panels, Rotterdam’s Water City, Canada’s pavilion with its wooden facade which can harvest rainwater and green vegetation on its walls, and Colombia University’s futuristic DragonFly project, which seeks to develop artificial trees which will capture carbon dioxide a thousand times faster than conventional trees. Most of these structures on the 5.35 sq km site will be torn down in six months’ time.
But move beyond the Shanghai Expo to sense the changing drama of New China’s physical landscape. In the past decade, China has lured well-established names in the world of architecture — the Dutch Rem Koolhaas, British architect Lord Norman Foster, and Frenchman Paul Andreu, among others — to create monumental structures.
China’s new edifices are breathtaking in terms of design and have green appeal too. For instance, Bejing’s new airport Terminal 3, designed by Foster, evokes the dragon, and is swathed in the imperial colours of red and gold. The $3.8 billion building boasts an integrated environment-control system which minimises energy consumption. Beijing will soon have its first sustainable residential property, the Linked Hybrid Building, designed by USA-based Steven Holl Architects — with the world’s largest geothermal cooling and heating systems.
One of the recent additions to the Beijing skyline — the $700 million China Central Television and Television Cultural Centre media headquarters has attracted rave reviews and brickbats. Critics have slammed the seemingly gravity-defying L-shaped towers, connected at the top and bottom, by Koolhaas, as genius wasted on a propaganda machine. Many others, however, contend that it is an unparalleled work of genius.
Chinese-born American architect I M Pei (credited with the stunning Pyramide du Louvre, Paris, 1989) has designed the acclaimed Suzhou Museum (2006), which like most of his work is a synergy of unique geometrics with a quintessentially Chinese soul.
Other architectural icons include the $500 million Bird’s Nest stadium designed by the Swiss duo Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron; Paul Andreu’s $400 million egg-shaped National Theatre, a gigantic titanium-and-glass dome in Beijing’s historic core (with the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square in the vicinity); architect Xing Tonghe’s Shanghai Museum (1996), a circle atop a square, symbolic of the ancient Chinese view of the heavens as rounded and the earth as square; and the Oriental Pearl Tower, a modernist vision designed by Jiang Huan Cheng of the Shanghai Modern Architecture Group, in 1991.
But all this clearly fails to impress many. One long-time Shanghai resident who wishes to remain anonymous speaks of the displacement of hordes of people in this bid to “let the world know that we have arrived”.
The Expo is thus a mixed bag. On the one hand, it showcases cutting-edge design, has led to many collaborations between foreign and local artists — such as that between pipa and rock musician Lin Di of the group Cold Fairyland, and a Finnish accordionist — and has been a great opportunity for local art groups who have pitched in for the Expo. On the other hand, it has come at a huge cost.
It’s like “a fake smile”, artist Ai Weiwei said recently. Artist Zhang Dali agrees, saying, “ If you want to promote and advertise a beautiful and fake image, then I think it is real damaging to the country. Advertising and promoting cannot change the reality, it can only be a temporary solution”. “The biggest enemy,” he warns, “is ourselves.”
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