Shanghai. How shall one describe it? A city of superlatives. That is the one word that comes to mind. Everything is on a huge scale. And there isn't anyplace that I can't think of that merits a comparison except New York City. Even then...
An open space outside the Orient Pearl TV Tower in Pudong, Shanghai. The sheer number of high-rises fills one's eyes as far as one can see. A city of unimaginable size with tall glittering towers of all shapes and sizes and different architectural styles including Neo-Classical, Art Decor, Art Moderne (possibly) Internationalist, Constrictivism but mostly eclectic. Fantastic fabrications of all kinds with tower blocks of glass and steel, concrete monoliths, trading houses left from the colonial powers in the nineteen twenties and more. There are old commercial buildings from the thirties mixed with the very latest in architectural thinking. There are old wooden tenements amidst the European houses of the twenties.
Old tenements amidst the soaring apartment blocks.
Shanghai is a city of the old and the new.
Shanghai is like a scene from a science fiction film of the fifties with impossible soaring tower blocks. The Orient Pearl TV Tower with its two bulbous platforms would not have looked out of place in Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis'. The two suspension bridges spanning the calm brown waters of the Huangpu river frames the metropolis of purportedly twenty million souls.
Shanghai is like a scene from a science fiction film of the fifties with impossible soaring tower blocks. The Orient Pearl TV Tower with its two bulbous platforms would not have looked out of place in Fritz Lang's 'Metropolis'. The two suspension bridges spanning the calm brown waters of the Huangpu river frames the metropolis of purportedly twenty million souls.
The skyline of Pudong, Shanghai amidst the morning mist. The Orient Pearl TV Tower stands prominent.
The golden Jin Mao Building with its eighty-eight floors and its form deliberately mimicking a pagoda in a superficial way with its 'stepped' appearance seems to signal a new reality. Capitalism is here! Economic growth and progress for all!
The sobering fact is that the majority of high-rises in this vast urban sprawl was built in the last five years! That very fact simply staggers the imagination.
The sobering fact is that the majority of high-rises in this vast urban sprawl was built in the last five years! That very fact simply staggers the imagination.
9 comments:
waa so fast .. the pics r fabulous.. how did u take those pics lar..
Thanks!
I took them with my little sister's Canon IXUS. It's a four megapixel device.
My old Kodak which I bought at 900+ SGD in 1997 or 1998 has only a one megapixel resolution. How quickly things change! I am afraid to buy a new one now.
Yes, my sister has a 1GB SD card in that camera.
Let me space out the photos and posts over a few days. Heheh.
the mighty chuang has spoken. He has blessed and approved of the holy city shanghai. the people have direction now... Capitalism rules!
The people really awaits your Royal Dictates. I am but your herald, O'Father of the Gods...
wow! fantastic fotos! Cool!
Thanks V!
It was quite an experience. I have a lot more photos and they are mainly of street scenes and buildings.
Cool pics from the Canon !!
Time to upgrade your camera ... or buy a camera phone ... my N70 comes with a 2 mega-pxiel camera ;-)
JC
Well, it's alright. I can always use my sister's when I need it. No real hurry. These devices are always improving anyhow.
Ditto for the mobile or cellphone.
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