Shanghai and (Beijing) Surprise

The year was 1982; the movie: Blade Runner. It left me speechless just thinking about the prospects of the future and the environment in which we’d have to live, at least according to director Ridley Scott and writer Philip K. Dick. One element of the movie continues to haunt me to this day: the part architecture played as a character in the film. My imagination was hard-pressed to come up with something better or more ominous for a twenty-first century cityscape than that of Blade Runner’s Los Angeles of 2019.

This week, I may have found its 2007 counterparts: Beijing and Shanghai. When I came across Budget Travel’s coverage of traveling in China which included Reflections on Rapidly-Changing Beijing, I saw cities like no others.

Unlike Dubai, where intense development and dramatic architecture have redrawn the city’s skyline, Beijing and Shanghai’s new architecture is unfamiliar, foreboding and inescapably futuristic. While Dubai still seems to hold hands with a few vestiges of the last century, the images of China portend a juggernaut of change unrealized before.  I found it both invigorating and unsettling at the same time. 

• Take a look at Budget Travel’s Beijing slideshow
• More China photos from Tony Law
• Shanghai Building Updates
  Beijing Building Updates 

Update Entry: Greg Girard, Phantom Shanghai

One of my Expedia compadres sent me the link to a fascinationg slideshow by Greg Girard of Vancouver, B.C.  His Shanghai images are haunting, the title of his book spot on. Take a look at the CBC's slideshow and listen to Mr. Girard's explanation of his subject and process.

Go to Phatom Shanghai slideshow