Rivista

Lake Ranwu lies about halfway between Lhasa in Tibet and Chengdu in the Chinese province of Sichuan, on National Highway 318. The lake is roughly 20 kilometres long, 1.5 kilometres wide, and is separated into lower, middle and upper sections. The surrounding landscape has a natural... Eduard Kögel

The ski resort at Lake Songhua in the Jilin Province of northeast China attracts skiers and winter sports enthusiasts. Its slopes are open from the end of November until early March. The resort was renovated in 2014, and is now an important destination for winter tourism, with 31 km of slopes and... Eduard Kögel

It is difficult to say how many practicing Christians there are in China today. Officially, they make up about two and a half per cent of the total population, but it is most probable that many are not registered as practicing Christians. The developing Chinese economy has also given... Eduard Kögel

Text by Eduard Kögel

Text by Eduard Kögel

Text by Eduard Kögel The suburban New Town of Anting is located in the Jiading District to the northeast of downtown Shanghai. Anting is the centre for the automotive industries and is home to many German-Chinese joint ventures such as Shanghai Volkswagen Automotive....

Text by Eduard Kögel

Text by Eduard Kögel

Text by Eduard Kögel

In 2009 the central government began the so-named Go West campaign to improve infrastructure and stimulate industrial growth in western inland provinces. Chengdu, the capital of the Sichuan province, is one of the centres identified by this campaign. More than ten million inhabitants live in this...

On 12 May 2008 the devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province of China destroyed thousands of lives within minutes. The affected area lies just a little more than one hundred kilometres north of Chengdu at the foot of the Himalayan Mountains. More than 70,000 people were killed and an additional...

The Buddhist Pun Chun Yuen Kwun Yum Temple in Tai Po belongs to the Lotus Association in Hong Kong. Annette Chu and her firm Eureka worked on the renovation of the temple park and transformed one temple hall into an ancestor hall by covering the original structure with a layer of timber...

Vector Architects from Beijing have designed a new library situated right on the beach on the north Chinese coast. The solid concrete block looks surreal in its natural environment. The site at Nandaihe is south of the established resort of Beidaihe, where in colonial times foreigners established...

The use of hot springs for wellbeing and medical care is an age-old practise in China. The new Ruff Well Water Resort designed by Shanghai-based architects AIM is an outstanding example of how that practise is reflected in contemporary society, particularly in new facilities for the urban...

In recent decades cities in China have grown at a tremendous speed. On their peripheries new real estate developments have produced huge housing complexes with uniform appearances. Many of these developments are a kind of speculative investment and as a result millions of the apartments are...

For a site in the Resonant Sand Bay in the Gobi Desert near the city of Baotou in Inner Mongolia PLaT architects from Beijing designed a hotel that reflects, in plan, the shape of a lotus flower. However, the inspiration of the design developed from the idea of creating a construction on top of...

The workshop of O-office Architects in Guangzhou was built on top of an old silo building that was part of a brewery. Its views go south across the river towards downtown and north towards a generic new high-rise housing estate. The architects reused the industrial space with basic but radical...

Many former industrial buildings in Chinese cities have been converted into hubs for the creative industries. There is political support for the shift of production from inner city neighbourhoods to newly established industrial zones on the fringes of the metropolises. Of course, environmental...

Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province in Southwest China. It is the most important economic, cultural and communication hub in the western region with more than seven million inhabitants in the inner city and more than six million in the suburbs. Since the early 21st century, with the...

China has an unbelievable 14,500 kilometers of coastline, not including the islands. From the north to the south, three different seas follow each other: The Yellow Sea with the Gulf of Bohai, the East China Sea and the South China Sea. Only the island of Hainan east of Vietnam is known in the...

In the German city of Mannheim an exhibition shows 100 contemporary architectural projects from China. The show was curated by Fang Zhenning for the Chinese cultural year in Germany, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Earlier the...

Almost half of the pig production worldwide takes place in China today. Until the 1990s, many families in the villages surrounding the cities produced pigs for their own consumption or for the local market. With the rapid urbanisation and the transformation of the villages into residential...

A wedding in China is an issue in which many aspects have to be considered. First one needs a lucky date, chosen by an expert, for the traditional family party. However, before the party takes place, the bride and groom need an official certificate issued by the Civil Affairs Department....

The Guangdong Province in South China is considered one of the rich provinces in the country. However, like in all other regions, the economic growth is based in the urban centres along the coast. From the hinterland the unskilled labour force moved already 30 years ago to the coastal regions and...

The Yarlong River (Yarlong Tsangpo in Tibetan, Yalu Zangbu Jiang in Chinese – the architects transcribe it as Yarluntzangbu) has its source in western Tibet and runs east through the southern part of the province. After a sharp U-turn the river crosses the border to Bangladesh and changes...

The Great Sichuan Earthquake on May twelfth 2008 killed at least 69,000 people. Alone in the administrative district of Deyang, one hour north of Chengdu, more than 17,000 people were killed. Due to poor construction and corruption in the building industry at least 7,000 schoolrooms collapsed in...

The Chinese artist Lei Yixin designed the newly opened Martin Luther King Memorial at the National Mall in Washington DC in the manner of Socialist Realism. The controversial question in the public was not so much the stylistic expression but more the fact that a Chinese artist got the commission...

The international airport and the new deep-water port of Shanghai are located in the district of Nanhui, which is part of Pudong New Area. This suburban area with its huge infrastructure is the perfect place for production of export goods. Many factories are scattered across the former...