This week's collection of whimsical and curious stories is inspired by the rumblings that have reached us recently from the Chinese real estate market. As many of you will know, China's second biggest real estate developer (the Evergrande Group*) has apparently been staring into the financial abyss leaving investors and contractors wondering if it would be able to service its $300bn in liabilities. Rather than fretting over the potential financial and economic implications of this drama, this newsletter will look at a curious side effect of the enormous building spree China has witnessed during its most recent history.
The ugliest building contest - If you were tasked to design hundreds of thousands of buildings, some would surely not be first in line for any architecture prizes. Perhaps this is what inspired the Chinese architecture website archy.com for the past 11 years to ask people to vote for the ugliest building in an annual contest. Here is a very brief look at this year's contestants:
A mix of US Capitol and Chinese temple in Shijiazhuang:
There is also a glass bridge where cracks are shown to spread across the glass panels accompanied by loud cracking noises played from loud speakers.
And then there is this hotel in Inner Mongolia:
You can find the full list here: Link
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*Not to be confused with the "Ever Given" - that unfortunate ship briefly bringing the Suez canal traffic to a hold with its problematic parking spot
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