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Tag Archives: China
Bad trad and good trad
Two articles fished from today’s indispensable ArchNewsNow.com, the thrice-weekly free compendium of anglospherical articles on architecture, edited by Kristen Richards, show the use and misuse of classical traditions on opposite sides of the world. Guess which is which, above and … Continue reading
Changing cities in China
Over a half century or so, China has changed from a largely rural to a largely urban country. The communists had brutal power and used it brutally, a sort of cultural revolution without the violence. China went from cities of … Continue reading
Kafka on China’s Great Wall
Even though I did a post not long ago on the Great Wall of China – linking to magnificent photographs on the website Kuriositas – I lack the knowledge to assess the comments by Franz Kafka on this subject. Kafka … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture, Books and Culture
Tagged China, Great Wall of China, John Updike, Kafka, Kuriositas
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The Great Wall of China
Who knew that it ended at the sea? It does, at the Yellow Sea, just athwart what we now call the Korean Peninsula. It is over 13,000 miles long, running from east to west. I do not know how successful … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture
Tagged China, Great Wall of China, Kuriositas, Ming Dynasty, Tourism
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Tip me over! Faster! Faster!
A proposed new megatower is planned in China’s Pearl River delta. The city is not named in either the Curbed or the Building Design & Construction articles, perhaps because the city will not exist until the building is finished. It … Continue reading
Oh, to be in, um, China!
It seems the People’s Republic of China has finally followed through on its maximum leader’s threat a year and a half ago to bar goofiness from its architecture. I penned a post, “Xi a Chinese visionary?” expressing my pleasure, or … Continue reading
Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Humor, Other countries, Urbanism and planning
Tagged China, Chinese People's Daily, Cultural Revolution, Dan Morales, James Shen, Mao, Penis, Phallic Buildings, President Xi, Rem Koolhaas
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A day at the dragon races!
For three years running we had just missed the dragon-boat races at the annual Pawtucket Arts Festival. This year we made it, and boy did we have fun! We saw contestants slam their cheeks pink in a watermelon-face-splat contest. We … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture, Architecture History, Art and design, Development, Landscape Architecture, Preservation, Rhode Island, Urbanism and planning, Video
Tagged Arts Festival, Blackstone River Valley, Blackstone River Valley Tourism Council, China, Dance, Dragon Boats, Industrial Revolution, Mayor Donald Grebian, Pawtucket, Robert Billington, Taiwan, Urban Planning, Watermelon
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Shots of China, Bhutan
Monday I was invited for a sail out of the Bristol Yacht Club with Michael Gerhardt, recently the temporary director of the Providence Athenaeum, and his friend Ken Gaus. The day was lovely and the wind was low – at … Continue reading
Xi a Chinese visionary?
Far be it from me to agree with the head of the Chinese Communist Party on anything, but please excuse me for agreeing with Xi Jinping on one thing. Speaking to a literary symposium last week, the Chinese president said, … Continue reading
Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Humor, Other countries
Tagged art, CCTV, China, Culture, Genocide, People's Daily, Xi Jinping
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Zaha “Ha Ha” Hadid’s thing
Even I don’t have the London City Halls to photomontage the People’s Daily into Qatar’s proposed World Cup Stadium, designed by Zaha Hadid. I refer, of course, firstly to Norman Foster’s London City Hall, called the “glass gonad” by London … Continue reading
