Zaha Hadid Architects designed the SOHO China offices central Beijing, completed in 2012. Bridges between five buildings are flowing and continuous, blurring the transition between outside and inside. It is a futuristic vision in a culture that emphasizes work and pushes for a more modernistic business.
The overall building volumes recess into the ground like round boulders in a stream. Horizontal layers scale these volumes like water around stream rocks. It is a stark departure from Beijing’s city imagery, and this has angered Chinese preservation groups. But let’s be honest. What is there in Beijing’s city imagery that is worth preserving?
The vast courtyards and uniformity is strikingly democratic in a Communist city where soaring skyscrapers stand next to slummy apartments. It is a commercial paradise that disregards cultural images and human fervor. It is idealistic modernism typical for Zaha Hadid. But if I were a resident of Beijing I probably wouldn’t be excited about it.
(Cory M. Grenier– flickr/creative commons license)
(caitriana– flickr/creative commons license)
(Cory M. Grenier– flickr/creative commons license)
(Cory M. Grenier– flickr/creative commons license)
(Ningbo Ningbo– flickr/creative commons license)
(Banalities– flickr/creative commons license)
(Ningbo Ningbo– flickr/creative commons license)
(Ningbo Ningbo– flickr/creative commons license)
(Ningbo Ningbo– flickr/creative commons license)
