Rising buildings for a rising power

I read an insightful article in the New York Times about the new architecture in Beijing that's been built in recent years in preparation for the Olympics. The structures created are absolutely incredible. If you are interested in architecture, history or curious as to see on of the ways this nation flexes its muscles, read this article here. I posted a few of the first paragraphs already just to offer a glimpse.




"BEIJING — If Westerners feel dazed and confused upon exiting the plane at the new international airport terminal here, it’s understandable. It’s not just the grandeur of the space. It’s the inescapable feeling that you’re passing through a portal to another world, one whose fierce embrace of change has left Western nations in the dust." -Nicolai Ouroussoff, New York Times July 13

"The sensation is comparable to the epiphany that Adolf Loos, the Viennese architect, experienced when he stepped off a steamship in New York Harbor more than a century ago. He had crossed a threshold into the future; Europe, he realized, was now culturally obsolete." -NYT July 13

"Critics have incessantly described these high-profile projects as bullish expressions of the nation’s budding global primacy. Yet these buildings are not simply blunt expressions of power. Like the great monuments of 16th-century Rome or 19th-century Paris, China’s new architecture exudes an aura that has as much to do with intellectual ferment as economic clout."-NYT July 13