By JRS
China Prophecy: Shanghai explores 21st-century skyscraper city of Shanghai and is the third in a cycle of three related exhibitions entitled FUTURE CITY: 20 | 21 that juxtaposes a retrospective of American visions of the skyscraper city of the future from the early 20th century with an exploration of Chinese cities today, pursuing the parallel conditions of rapid modernization and urbanization. The second exhibition of the cycle, Vertical Cities, focused on Hong Kong and New York.
From left: Oriental Pearl TV Tower, Tomorrow Square, Jin Mao, and SWFC (under construction); Jin Mao; SWFC
The second exhibition in the three part series, FUTURE CITY: 20|21, Vertical Cities, examined the parallels during two major development booms and defining moments in the vertical identity of New York in the 1920s and 1960s and Hong Kong in the mid-1980s-1990s and today. Today, as high-rises proliferate everywhere, Hong Kong holds the title with 7,200. Still ascending, though, Shanghai is surely China’s prophecy of the urban future.
China Prophecy documents this stupendous urban transformation through film and photographs of old and new Shanghai, including a 20–minute video odyssey traveling the city’s streets and highways filmed by resident photographer Jakob Montrasio. Evoking the speed and ambition of the city’s futuristic focus are projected computer animations by the Chinese company Crystal CG that create spectacular flyovers of the city before circling the major skyscrapers that are their subjects.
The installation features large models of the major towers that now define—or will soon enhance—the Shanghai skyline. These include an architectural and wind-tunnel testing model of Jin Mao (88 stories; 1999); a presentation model of Tomorrow Square (55 stories; 2003); a massing model and structural engineering model of the Shanghai World Financial Center (101 stories; 2008); and an architectural model and structural computer models of Shanghai Tower (128 stories; 2014), now in development. Other renderings, sections, and construction photographs illustrate a range of technical issues that distinguish these towers, which are all designs of American-and mostly New York based-architectural and engineering firms. Other major high-rise projects included in the exhibition are KPF’s Jing An complex and SOM’s White Magnolia Plaza, both in development. The issue of global design practice is explored in the exhibition and a related lecture series in fall 2009.
Sustainable skyscraper design seems an oxymoron to some, but as the exhibition argues, high-rises and high density-in conjunction with mass transit-is a logical strategy for greener cities. The city’s most advanced high-performance design planned to date is the double-glass curtain wall of the Shanghai Tower, which will encircle eight stacked 15-story segments with atrium spaces and sky gardens soaring the full height of the 128-story structure. “Better City, Better Life,” calls out Shanghai’s emphasis on sustainable design as the slogan for the 2010 Expo, which will open May 1, 2010. The exhibition illustrates the Expo in plans, photographs, and a Crystal CG animation of the site and pavilions that emphasizes Shanghai’s self-image as the city of the future.
Source: Skyscraper Museum of New York
The exhibition will be at the museum through March 2010
