@ Aboveday : Very interesting insight information. Nice to have a chinese there to point out that political dimension to us faraway observers. We tend to be mainly obsessed by architecture or fantasies about the Science fiction touch of modern China towns. Nice buildings, incredible chinese economic dynamism that makes possible all those titanesque works, reminding us of the lost power of the western world. It's a long time we are told 21th century will be asian, and now we are in the 21th century... and we watch it happens.
On the other side I was wondering what chinese people themselves think of this construction boom. I am aware that many old houses are demolished to give room for endless estate speculation. The poors are sent to faraway suburbs while foreigners, rich and middle class people live in cities center new buildings. Capitalist way : social inegality, no respect for historical cultural patrimony, ecological concerns, etc... I'm afraid the government is focussing on this modern urban facade to hide misery elsewhere with the olympic games and Shanghai world expo deadlines in view. Nice poscards for western media, no matter the price for the people.
To come back to that circle polemic, I think that as would say Doctor Sigmund Freud, we always have to keep in mind that this circle is also just a circle... The chinese should perhaps exert sustained pressure on Japan to obtain the recognition of their war crimes towards Chinese during WW2. Unlike germans, most japanese tend to remember that period as victims, not criminals. For them, Hiroshima just means the atomic bomb (a shame the US president jumped on the occasion to test it, and twice), they don't want to know that there also was there a laboratory experimenting atrocities on corean prisoners, just like the nazis. Very few of them admit it, history books try to erase all these embarassing memories of WW2. So I do understand why the chinese people are so angry, but hating the building is not going to solve in anyway this political question.
And let's not forget the architect is american, not japanese. Let's remind what where the original intentions that led to the choice of this circle.
One was technical : to release wind pressure on the top of the building, a hole was nedeed.
A circle shaped hole has been choosen for symbolic reasons. This building grows from an horizontal square into a vertical circle. The architect intention was to say "from earth to sky"; given that in chinese cosmogony, the symbol for earth is a square and for sky is a circle. Nothing to do with the japanese flag.
The size of this circle is exactly the same than those of the Oriental Pearl spheres. It was intended as a contextual mirroring to unify Pudong skyline.
Therefore I totally disagree with the Fabb and JACKinNYC proposals for others symbols. The architect's original symbolic intentions must be kept untouched. Artists do not have to submit to political pressures of any sorts. This circle, as a mere form, is perfectly integrated into the fluidity of the building design. I think shanghaiese people should really enjoy this beautiful building.
Interpretation is really a very wide open field... New proposal : Try to imagine a drunken Homer Simpson in front of WFC : "Hmmm, a giant opener!"
Last edited by avcellvs; Mar 30, 2004 at 9:21 AM.
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