Wednesday, October 26, 2011

China attracts more architects

China attracts more architects

China’s construction industry attracts world famous architects to the Chinese market.

The tide of deepening globalization has integrated China and the world more than ever before. Today China absorbs new ideas and trends in architecture from every corner of world through television, network and other modern information technology.

China International Architectural Expo is a leading event in building and construction industry in China. For the past 4 years, China International Architectural Expo attracted more than 1,500 exhibitors from over 30 countries, Over 10,000 visitors from in and abroad visited the expo, now it has become the most influential and comprehensive building event in China.

Architects from all over the world meet in conferences and festivals. For example the competition to
London, UK - World Festival Of Architecture attracted entries from as far south as Tasmania to the northernmost Arctic Circle in Norway, with countries such as Libya, Haiti and Cambodia appearing for the first time alongside the UK, USA, China, Australia, Japan, Spain, Brazil, Turkey and Scandinavia, all well represented. Projects include a theatre made of straw in Estonia, a soccer school in Soweto, a tree hotel in Sweden and a boulder-like chapel in Mexico.

French architect Paul Andreu was handed what he calls a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when Chinese authorities picked him to design an ultra-modern opera house in the center of Beijing. This project of 300 million euro (US$430 million) opera house is a rounded titanium and glass structure.

China is building a huge amount, so opportunities are huge. But China also has a lot of ambition. For years, they didn’t do much, and they were lagging behind. Now, they are making up for lost time. 

The 90,000-seat “Bird’s Nest” stadium, which became the centerpiece of the 2008 Olympics with its threads of interlocking steel beams, is probably the best known of innovative structures that dot China’s skyline.

Renowned British architect Norman Foster, who designed the much-acclaimed Terminal 3 at Beijing’s international airport, is also building the headquarters for CITIC Bank in the eastern city of Hangzhou.

Ma Qingyun, whose firm MADA s.p.a.m. has countless projects across China, was named one of the world’s most influential designers by Businessweek last year, along with Hadid.

Michael Tunkey, the Shanghai-based partner at international firm Cannon Design, said other countries in Asia were also proving a boon for architects.

Frank Gehry, designer of Los Angeles’s Walt Disney Concert Hall, is seeking projects in Asian countries including China and India as slower U.S. growth crimps development in the world’s largest economy. The architect is competing to plan a museum in one of China’s fast-expanding metropolitan areas, as well as a “very spiritual kind of a building” in India. He expects to sign a contract within three to four months should an agreement be reached for the Chinese museum. One challenge of designing in a country such as China is the lower pay for projects, Gehry said. Architects get paid a percentage of construction costs, which in China are about a third of what they are in the U.S., he said.

Sources:
chinese-architects
Bloomberg
TaipeiTimes
Free Malaysia
Aahra-architect..
iae-china.org

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