China's Emerging "Science-Fiction" Cities of the Future

Ancient cities that rise on the banks of the Yellow River tlike Yinchuan, Luoyang and Zhengzhou – places few Americans have ever heard of – are racing to become China’s next new regional urban centers with almost other-worldy futuristic building booms.

Yinchuan, a modest, ancient capital, is building an entire city district for a vast government complex and is adding 20 million square feet of construction every year through 2011 near historical sites including mosques, pagodas, pavilions, temples, and imperial tombs as well as natural scenery such as Helan Mountain. Luoyang, once the capital of the Zhou dynasty, has built a cluster of futuristic sports stadiums that look like a grounded armada of metallic, alien spaceships.

In Beijing, Rem Koolhaas's topologically self-connected headquarters for China Central Television (image above), the size of 37 football fields, "one of the largest buildings ever constructed," looms like something from the set of Star Wars. Koolhaas sublime, futuistic structure celebrates the "chance-like" nature of city life. Koolhaas has wriiten that "the City is an addictive machine from which there is no escape."

His design for the new CCTV headquarters is a series of volumes which not only tie together the numerous departments to the nebulous site, but also introduced routes for the general public.

Checkout this fascinating Bldg Blog to read more