The Chinese migration to the fast-growing cities of Beijing and Shanghai continues unabated. But what of the actual buildings created there? Philip Dodd and guests explore the dramatic new architecture that is changing the Chinese landscape forever, and the social and cultural price that is being paid.
Playlist
The Chinese migration to the new cities of the Eastern seaboard and great urban centres of Beijing and Shanghai continues unabated.
An estimated one hundred million people are on the move. Not only are traditional urban centres growing, but brand new cities - with populations of over a million - are being created right across China.
What do these cities look like? What are they like to live in? What of the actual buildings created there? And what are the implications of the largest migration in the history of mankind?
Philip Dodd and guests explore the dramatic new architecture that is changing the Chinese landscape forever, and the social, cultural and ecological price that is being paid.
Joining Night Waves from Beijing are the architects Xu Tiantian who is helping to build a new city in Mongolia, and Li Hu, who is building a city within the city of Beijing, consisting of giant linked towers.
Also on the programme is Martin Manning from the British engineering firm Arup, which is creating the new airport for Beijing and the centre for China Television designed for 10,000 people and shaped like a giant puzzle.
And Herbie Girardet, who is helping to transform a vast area of agricultural land South of Shanghai into the giant new city of Dongtan which claims to be the world's first genuinely ecological city.
How will China's building boom hope to care for the environment when the country is already home to sixteen of the world's top twenty most polluted cities?
For further information on, and pictures of, the buildings discussed in the programme, visit http://www.sohochina.com/english/_asp/articles_temp.asp?id=10000449.
