SOARING PROFILE Tan Yingzi
American architect Adrian Smith aims to help Chongqing create its own landmark. reports.
On a chilly, foggy afternoon in Chongqing in late November, American architect Adrian Smith stood by the Yangtze River, looking at the Nanshan Mountain across the water.
With many notable buildings credited to his design in the past five decades, what piece of architecture could he build for the Chinese city with a beautiful landscape?
“It (the project) will be an exceptional piece of art,” the 73-year-old says in a hotel cafe after a brief visit to the city downtown.
“It will not relate to the past architecture in Chongqing but create a new architectural way forward.”
The city is located on the upper reaches of the Yangtze, and the building project is being developed by Sunac China Holdings Ltd in the Jiangbeizui financial district that has views of the Jialing River. The real estate will be developed into offices, residential areas, hotels and retail shops.
The project will also aim to build a 470-meter-high skyscraper in the city of 30 million people that wants to show its ambition of becoming a world-class metropolis through such architecture.
Chongqing is almost as big as Austria and has long been an industrial hub, where the Yangtze River Economic Zone and, more recently, the Belt and Road Initiative have boosted economic development.
The city is poised to become a financial center in southwestern China thanks to its political and geographic significance.
Smith is one of the world’s foremost architects designing really high buildings. He has designed many well-known projects, including the world’s highest structure, Burj Khalifa in Dubai, as well as the building projected to surpass it and the first kilometer-high building, the Jeddah Tower in Saudi Arabia.
The term “super tall” is used to describe buildings over 300 meters, according to the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a Chicagobased nonprofit in the field of high buildings and sustainable urban design.
Founded in 2006, Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture is known for designing signature towers, corporate headquarters, mixed-use high-rises, luxury residences and five-star luxury hotels.
Like other ambitious cities in China, Chongqing is keen to have many high buildings. By August, there were 62 buildings over 180 meters high in the city, according to local officials.
But none has been able to become a “symbol” of the city.
As a landmark, the new building area will reflect the features of Chongqing and be related to its environment, geography and culture, Smith says.
For instance, the mountain and two rivers have given Chongqing the tag of “foggy city” and most days are overcast.
“Chongqing does not have a lot of direct sunlight compared to many other cities,” he says.
Therefore, the project will use a material that will work well with this lighting condition.
“The city is formed by many centuries of erosion with the river (Yangtze). So it has very strong features of water, mountains and gorges. We can put those features into the building with the technologies of the 21st century,” he says.
A very high building can become a landmark of the city by its sheer height alone, but “we have the responsibility to develop and design the building working on three reasons”, Smith says.
“It needs to function well for its intended use, to be well built with the best quality and durability, and to be a piece of art.”
In 1930, the Chrysler Building in Manhattan, New York, became the world’s first “super tall” skyscraper.
At present, there are 100 such buildings worldwide and nearly half of them are in China.
During their careers, Smith and his partner at their firm have worked on many buildings in China, such as the Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai, the Nanjing Zifeng Tower, the Waldorf-Astoria Beijing and the Pearl River Tower in Guangzhou.
“Such a landmark will become a focal point for the region and put the city in line with the first-tier cities,” says Smith. “It is a symbol of modernity.” He has been working in the field for “50 years and six months” since he started as an intern at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, a well-known company then creating high buildings, in 1967.
He worked his way up at the firm for 40 years and, in 2006, he decided to start his own in Chicago.
“As far as I can remember back in my life, I have been interested in tall buildings,” Smith recalls.
“When I was in high school taking my first drafting course, the first building I drew was 40 stories tall.”
The first project he participated at the first firm was a 100-story building.
“I worked in a basement, detailing the swimming pool,” he says.
His first project in China was the Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai. In 1993, SOM won the design competition for the tower and then completed the 88-story building, China’s highest and the third highest in the world.
“Super tall” buildings involve a lot of engineering and combined technology.
It’s 50 percent art and 50 percent science, he says.
The challenge to make a piece of beautiful architecture has kept the architect going in the field for over half a century.
“Every building is a different challenge,” he says, adding that the sites, circumstances and clients are different.
Smith says he has noticed how Chinese architects are emerging on the international stage.
“I see a lot of buildings going up (by Chinese architects), mostly smaller structures that are very enlightened,” he says.
During his last trip to Beijing this year, he was “stunned” by the new Phoenix International Media Center.
The ballooning torus formed by a twisting lattice of steel and enclosed with 3,800 glass panels has been designed by Shao Weiping, chief executive architect of the government-owned Beijing Institute of Architectural Design.
“That would stand up well against any building I have seen around the world. It’s highly sophisticated and challenging. That is an outstanding piece of architecture,” Smith says.
Having created so many extraordinary high buildings, the architect now wishes to design an art museum. “It will have one story, maybe two.”