Photo of the Day - The National Grand Theater

"Last time I was in Bejing ten years ago it looked like a dusty village. But I had a great time sightseeing and eating all the food."

Now it is a dusty, crowded village of concrete monoliths.

criticize the Pearl TV Tower and its two spheres? Whatever for?

looks amazing! luvs it.

I wonder what it looks like from the sky. The curve of the border between the gold part and the black part looks similar to the 太极 symbol from the side. I will be the first to admit that some of the modern architecture in China is not so great, but there are some very cool looking buildings in Shanghai at least. Last time I was in Bejing ten years ago it looked like a dusty village. But I had a great time sightseeing and eating all the food. Anyhow, what irritates me most is when people criticize the pearl tower but they just don't understand the concept behind it because they don't know Chinese poetry.

You think Beijing is a world-class city today? Have you been outside of China?

After watching the construction of this beautiful building on and off for the last couple of years, I'm delighted that it has joined the Beijing skyline. I think a world class city should have a variety of architecture and this is a wonderful example of that.

Not everything needs to look like a Ming dynasty building.

If it had real chinese characteristics in the modern sense, it would be a concrete shell while the developer was shown in Asian business mags in his Bentley while migrant workers rioted for 6 months back pay.

well... what would be a small chinese "cultural" characteristic? a "flying roof" on top of a sctucture, that's much worse

中学为体西学为用吧

Tacky. They are building a new China, would it kill them to build something that had at least a few Chinese cultural characteristics. Such a wasted opportunity and that thing is a blight on Beijing.