SHENZHEN, China — For some time now China has been the world’s great incubator of architectural ideas: the place where architects are free to explore some of their most outlandish fantasies. And more and more, that freedom seems to be giving rise to an architectural renaissance, one that is producing legitimate architectural masterpieces.
Case in point: the Vanke Center, a vast office, hotel and exhibition complex on the edge of this bustling city of nine million in the Pearl River Delta. Steven Holl, the center’s architect, is a major talent, with significant projects in Europe and America, but his most potent urban ideas have sat on shelves for decades.
In China he was given the chance to dust them off, and the results are extraordinary. Nicknamed the “Horizontal Skyscraper,” the Vanke Center is a surreal hybrid — part building, part landscape, part infrastructure. Its jagged form, propped up above a tropical park on piers up to 50 feet high, gives identity to a characterless landscape. It demonstrates what can happen when talented architects are allowed to practice their craft uninhibited by creative restrictions (or, to be fair, by the high labor costs of most developed societies).
To read the full, original article click on this link: Steven Holl’s Design for the Vanke Center in China - Review - NYTimes.com
Author:NICOLAI OUROUSSOFF
