# World's Largest Building Opens in China **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 14, 2013, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-largest-building-opens-in-china/663462 "2013-07-14T06:14:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-largest-building-opens-in-china/663462/1 "2013-07-14T06:14:24Z")
And not even in Shanghai or Beijing but in [Chengdu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu), in southwestern China. Stories [here](http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2013/jul/09/largest-building-world-china-seaside) and [here](http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asia/359715/world-largest-building-opens-in-china). A shopping mall called the New Century Global Centre. Not the tallest building mind you, but the largest. A hundred meters (325 feet) tall, 500 meters long and 400 meters wide. With 1.7 million square meters of floor space, it has three times the floor area of the Pentagon. Big enough to fit 20 Sydney Opera Houses. Has an artificial sun and a beach resort to go with it. Those damned Commies will do anything to undercut us. _Shakes fist_ ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-largest-building-opens-in-china/663462/2 "2013-07-14T06:31:14Z")
Mao se Tung would be rolling around in his grave if it weren’t filled with dead concubines. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-largest-building-opens-in-china/663462/3 "2013-07-14T10:09:35Z")
The design looks quite nice - it doesn’t look like a sun-blotting monolith, at least. And of course as a SF fan, I’m interested in these steps towards arcologies. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-largest-building-opens-in-china/663462/4 "2013-07-14T10:54:30Z")
I lived just outside of Chengdu for a while. It’s a great city, but the artificial sun is badly needed. Chengdu’s weather makes Seattle look like Honolulu. In any case, I’d be surprised if they fill this up. Chengdu already has an enormous amount of mall space. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 11:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-largest-building-opens-in-china/663462/5 "2013-07-14T11:08:28Z")
Bah, it’s only largest in floor space, the most boring (although admittedly most practical) measure of largest buildings. The Boeing plant in Everett still has it beat for volume, and some flower market in the Netherlands has it beat in total area. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-largest-building-opens-in-china/663462/6 "2013-07-14T13:37:50Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > I lived just outside of Chengdu for a while. It’s a great city, but the artificial sun is badly needed. Chengdu’s weather makes Seattle look like Honolulu. An appropriate analogy as Chengdu is also a major aviation technology town. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-largest-building-opens-in-china/663462/7 "2013-07-14T14:38:55Z")
It’s just the latest example of the overbuilding in China. Will those hotel rooms ever be occupied? Are there enough people to shop at that gigantic mall? Are there really that many people with that much free income? Perhaps they can turn the building into a shelter for poor and homeless Chinese. It’s going to be painful (even for those of us outside of China) when the Chinese real estate bubble bursts. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-largest-building-opens-in-china/663462/8 "2013-07-14T16:06:49Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > The design looks quite nice - it doesn’t look like a sun-blotting monolith, at least. And of course as a SF fan, I’m interested in these steps towards arcologies. First time I’ve heard that word used! Is the project in Arizona still going? ---
**Author:** ![Emtar\_KronJonDerSohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/58956e/32.png) [@Emtar\_KronJonDerSohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Emtar_KronJonDerSohn)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-largest-building-opens-in-china/663462/9 "2013-07-14T16:46:55Z")
It is. For years I’ve wanted to stay there overnight but never have. Rooms are really cheap and it would be a different experience. [http://www.arcosanti.org/](http://www.arcosanti.org/) ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-largest-building-opens-in-china/663462/10 "2013-07-14T17:02:09Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > Bah, it’s only largest in floor space, the most boring (although admittedly most practical) measure of largest buildings. The Boeing plant in Everett still has it beat for volume, and some flower market in the Netherlands has it beat in total area. What is the distinction between floor space and area in this context? ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-largest-building-opens-in-china/663462/11 "2013-07-14T17:06:33Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > First time I’ve heard that word used! Is the project in Arizona still going? Yes. It is perpetual. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-largest-building-opens-in-china/663462/12 "2013-07-14T17:11:55Z")
> [@OldGuy](#): > > What is the distinction between floor space and area in this context? Area would just be the overall footprint of the building on the land, whereas floor space is the area of all the multiple floors added up. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-largest-building-opens-in-china/663462/13 "2013-07-14T17:23:33Z")
I thought the largest building was the government palace that mad Rumanian dictator Ceaucescue was building? ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-largest-building-opens-in-china/663462/14 "2013-07-14T17:31:25Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I thought the largest building was the government palace that mad Rumanian dictator Ceaucescue was building? It’s the largest [“civilian administrative” building](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_the_Parliament), which I presume basically means it’s the biggest building that isn’t a factory, a private office building, or the Pentagon (hence the “civilian” qualifier). It’s also apparently massively overconstructed and so has the distinction of being the heaviest building. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Made\_French\_Toast\_For\_You](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/858c86/32.png) [@I\_Made\_French\_Toast\_For\_You](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Made_French_Toast_For_You)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-largest-building-opens-in-china/663462/15 "2013-07-14T17:40:28Z")
Some of the descriptions of the building remind of old-timey, Chicago World’s Fair type bombast, only now applied to monumental Postmodernism: > [@Guardian article in OP](#): > > On entering the echoing 18-storey atrium, lined with a stratified cream cake of hotel balconies and zig-zagging escalators, visitors are blasted with artificial sea breeze, designed to “make one intoxicated, as if he were enjoying himself in the fabulous heaven”. Moving past aquarium walls and through a strange hybrid townscape of Polynesian huts crossed with a middle eastern kasbah, tourists arrive at the 400m-long coastline, where the largest artificial waves in the world break in front of the longest LED screen in the world – on which “the alternating morning cloud and twilight afterglow extend the horizon limitlessly in the temporal and spatial directions”. The comparison to arcology is interesting, though I think (recently deceased) Paolo Soleri wouldn’t agree. It’s a megastructure, but that seems to be the only similarity. I couldn’t find any mentions of hyper-dense living, self-sufficiency, limited ecological impact, or even run-of-the-mill green building design. The architecture certainly doesn’t project an image of environmental friendliness; it projects an image of extravagant commercialism. ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2013, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-largest-building-opens-in-china/663462/16 "2013-07-14T17:56:49Z")
There have been several news stories on TV about construction sites like this (one is sort of like Paris?) that have cost a fortune, are huge, and remain vacant years after completion. I thought one of the major problems is they are building them so far away, nobody in the area could afford to buy anything or go there or rent a condo. They showed hundreds of thousands of people living in shanties nearby - usually poor, displaced farmers whose land was gobbled up by the mega-constructions. Sort of like building a Beverly Hills Rodeo Drive in the backwoods of Alabama. Pretty, but most people there wouldn’t be able to afford the gas to drive there, let alone buy anything or live there or do anything in the area. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-largest-building-opens-in-china/663462/17 "2013-07-16T03:17:14Z")
I’ve not been to that part of China, but it appears to be a huge urban center with lots of industry and foreign investment. So who knows, maybe it will be commercially viable. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2013, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worlds-largest-building-opens-in-china/663462/18 "2013-07-16T03:44:00Z")
It’s an urban area of around 20 million people, and two hours by train away from Chongqing, another urban area of 28 million people-- and basically everyone from the densely populated countryside is eager to move into the big cities. Unlike Chongqing, which resembles some kind of Bladerunner dystopia, Chengdu is a pretty livable place. There are lots of parks, great food, and a very laid back approach to life. Nice city, if you don’t mind never seeing a blue sky. The building appears to be in one of the outlying satellite urban centers that spring up around Chinese cities. Sometimes these work, and they turn into thriving communities. Sometimes they don’t, and you end up with lots of most-empty buildings. I’m not too familiar with that part of town, but if the new subway goes out there, it could work.