The Guangzhou Circle…

On the last day of my most recent trip to Guangzhou, I spotted this amazing building on the Pearl River…

I’d never seen anything like it.  I wish I could tell you these photos were mine (they are not; I just grabbed them off the Internet).   The building is obviously done in the shape of a giant circle (with the accent on giant).  It turns out that it’s an office building, and it is the headquarters of two giant Chinese firms.  It’s called the Guangzhou Circle.  The hole in the middle is nearly 300 feet across.

The idea is that the architects wanted to break from traditional skyscraper design, and I’d say they succeeded.   Some folks think it is supposed to resemble a coin.   Others say that with its reflection on the Pearl River, it resembles a giant 8, and 8 is a lucky number for the Chinese…

There are a lot of impressive buildings in Asian cities.  There’s the Lego building in Bangkok, the floating ship building in Singapore, and many, many more. I’ve got photos of these stashed away on a hard drive someplace; I’ll look for them later and post them in a future blog.  I saw several other interesting buildings on the Guangzhou skyline on my most recent visit.  Someday I’ll be back and I’ll focus (pardon the pun) on skyscraper architectural photography, but that’s a project for another trip.