China opened the world’s largest building this week in Chengdu. The building is 140,000 square meters and was started just three years ago, in 2010.
The New Century Global Centre in China took only three years to build. (IBT Times)
The Guardian reported:
Chengdu’s New Century Global Centre has its own beach resort, cinemas, shops – and a replica Mediterranean village
Beneath smoggy clouds in the Chinese mega-city of Chengdu, waves lap against sandy shores and a salty breeze blows across the beach. 6,000 holidaymakers look out on a glowing sunset, dining on platters of “the rarest oceanic fish species”, while a stage rises from the water, ready for the evening’s multimedia music spectacular. China’s fourth largest city may be 620 miles from the coast, but that hasn’t stopped it having its own seaside – newly opened inside the biggest building in the world.
A 100m tall cliff-face of blue mirrored glass, stretching 500m along a triumphal plaza, the New Century Global Centre houses an entire seaside resort, along with a 14-screen Imax cinema, Olympic-sized ice rink, two five-star hotels and its own Mediterranean shopping village – all wrapped with a vast ribbon of offices. Sprawling for 1.7m square metres, it could fit 20 Sydney Opera Houses beneath its glass roof. It is declared by its creators to be “a landmark which commands the world and is looked upon by the world with respect,” a pleasure dome that Kubla Khan could only dream of.
Positioned at the heart of the city’s Tianfu district, a new hub for finance, IT and biochemical industries, the building squats like an overfed prize fowl, teetering out in all directions and looming above a neighbouring art centre by Zaha Hadid – a dwarf in comparison, at 140,000 square metres.
Meanwhile, they’re still working on the new Freedom Tower in New York City twelve years after the 9-11 attacks.
