Learning from Beijing

Beijing must be the ultimate fake experience, the Las Vegas of the Far East. Instead of casinos imagine semi upscale worker housing, endless groups of identical boring skyscrapers, and shopping malls full of contraband stuff you wouldn't want even if it was original. What you see has been choreographed by the government, every poor neighborhood hidden behind brand new stone walls with hanging flower pots, happily undulating next to patches of perfect gardens, hiding the stinking hell of living without running water, stinking sewer streets and life as it was before the Olympics. Even the highway to the Great China Wall is lined with a thick wall of trees so you think China is a beautiful forest when instead its all factories that make made in china garbage. Still a fascinating place to visit.
Along the way we passed Marble Gates
(In The Temple of Heaven Park or something like that)
and rainbow gates

that glow at nightand tree gatesand Pagoda skyscrapers
with VIP hotlines
and slightly 80's rooftops
and neoclassical shopping-mall absurdities

we said hi to the Great Wall of Chinaand slid down slides

we passed fruitbowl sculptures

and poor neighborhoods covered-up
with "will be pretty" posters


they didnt let you look inside, where its dirty and stinkybecause the future is poster perfect
Sterling Ruby at Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, 798 Art Area

Amazing Bia Davou drawings at the Transexperiences exhibition by EMST, 798 Space

The Arab Guggenheim Museum by Nikos Charalambidis

great drawing by Katerina Christidi

stone grotto staircase in the Forbidden City

Steven Holl's Looped Hybrid

could never resist Koolhaas' CCTV, the most impressive and sinister building I saw recently

from every possible angle

looming over unsuspecting China
Herzog & de Meuron's Bird Nest also quite nice

some samurai skyscrapers

Yellow and Blue neighbors
with Eiffel Tower topping

R2D2 Siamese twins

More Pagoda Post Modernism
with lightbulb outlines pretending everything is all right