The Dragon -Beijing's New Monster Airport

Shaped like a giant two-mile long Medieval dragon rising from the dry plains to the east, Beijing's new airport -the world's largest- is larger than all the terminals at London's Heathrow combined.

"It's the world's largest and most advanced airport building," says the architect, Norman Foster. With airports at Stansted and Hong Kong already under his belt, he should know better than anyone.

The airport is the new gateway to the city. "It's advanced not only technologically, but also in terms of passenger experience, operational efficiency and sustainability," says Foster. "It will be welcoming and uplifting, a symbol of place, its soaring aerodynamic roof and dragon-like form will celebrate the thrill and poetry of flight and evoke traditional Chinese colours and symbols."

In short, the airport is not only  about shifting large numbers of people in and out of the city, but it will also play a major role in the conspicuous assertion of a new kind of China and its modernity. It is one of a dozen huge projects Beijing is building at furious speed to transform the city in time for the Olympic games of 2008.

Posted by Casey Kazan.

 

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Source:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080229024356.w7w7vsaf&show_article=1

Comments

[Morf]

When I arrived in the Beijing airport in February of 1999, there was ONE baggage carousel (!!) Virtually all of the luggage that joined my very American suitcase was in large and mostly ragged cardboard boxes.

In less than ten years, the airport (and the cities of China) has been unrecognizably transformed.

Welcome to the future.

Get used to it.

[Jack]

And the pollution, and the human rights abuses, etc.
At least there's one thing that'll never change - the nostalgic aromatic stench of the Chinese public bathrooms so indicative of the fact that no matter how much China tries to appear modern, deep down inside we're still basically the same.

[Dan in Beijing]

Actually, Beijing now has the most public WCs of any city in the world, and a new grading system and modernisation meens that most are far better than they used to be.