Designed by visionary Persian architect (and very scary woman) Zaha Hadid*, it's garnering universal praise from every critic:
Sydney? Pah! Guangzhou is the new world epicentre for the extravagant architecture of opera houses.
China is simply unimaginable. A new high-speed railway line links Guangzhou with Wuhan, slashing the >10 hour journey to just three; and you end up here, in Wuhan's wonderfully wavy new railway station:
The meandering footbridge reminds me of Victorian Liverpool Street, before the soulless refurb, where high level passenger walkways sliced seemingly at random through the station.
In no other respect is this similar to Liverpool Street.
*So scary that when she was guest at a formal dinner and started smoking, no-one -- no-one -- had the balls to tell her that smoking wasn't allowed...
5 comments:
I've seen a few of her other designs, wasn't keen, but that opera house looks quite exciting and I love the look of the new station. Very stylish work.
Zaha is Iraqi. I offer this pedantic correction in the interests of LeDuc's personal safety, knowing just how scary she is.
Goddamnit: there was I trying to be carefully correct, and getting it completely wrong. D'oh!
Thanks for the correction.
Churches, with their extravagant design, once dominated the landscape as seats of power, then banks. Now opera houses and railway stations?
Yes!
Does this mean that rail beauracracies are the new power bloc? Does this mean that freeway bureauracracies are being relocated to the third basement?
Yes!
Sydney is not an opera house. It is a concert hall with a miniscule (minuscule?) opera theatre tucked away in the basement: a classic example of political intereference.
Tomorrow belongs to us: who knew that you were such an astute poltical critic? Thank you.
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