By 2030, China’s cities are expected to be home to 1 billion people. As it urbanizes, the boom country of the 21st century is turning to the boom city of the late 19th and early 20th centuries — Chicago. The city’s architects are exporting their expertise to China, but the country’s breakneck pace of urban development raises unsettling questions. Among them: In urbanizing so quickly, is China diminishing quality of life instead of celebrating it?
In a three-part series, “Designed in Chicago, Made in China,” Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin and photographer John J. Kim provide a fascinating and revealing look into China’s urbanization and the role that Chicago architects are playing in the reshaping of China’s cityscapes, using as their template the three pillars of urban life:
- Work examines some of the most visible symbols of China’s hyperfast urban growth — its new skyscrapers.
- Live looks at a crucial element in China’s urbanization — vast swaths of new high-rise housing burdened by a critical flaw — stifling sameness.
- Play explores China’s urban transformation through the prism of its new hotels, museums and amusement parks that reflect an increasingly consumerist society.