Check Out the Flag

Somewhere in China, this gleaming white new/old building is laying in wait, unoccupied as of this posting.

A cycling friend, who lives in mainland China a good portion of each year, came across this unusual building and decided it was noteworthy. He was right.

We all know how pasta and gunpowder and paper and all sorts of essential doodads of modern life were invented in China. However, the architectural aesthetics of the Far East seem to have remained in the Far East. Too bad, actually.

After seeing all the modern architecture being imported into China as fast as architects can design and builders can build, it's now obvious that the flow of cultural artifacts and functional/economically viable aspects of 20th/21st-century architectural stylings (i.e. glass monoliths with funky geometries and all the air conditioning they can afford) have now been embraced the world over. Too bad, actually.

Except that this Neo-proto-quasi-institutional building is unnerving -- a Classic Greek Revival building inspired by Washington D.C., and the Parthenon, and the La Torre de Pisa (the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but without the lean) -- TIMES TWO even! -- and the Egyptian obelisks with the transparent Ieoh Ming Pei touch, and a bunch of large, white, presumably concrete... soccer balls? Click on the photo and see it mucho larger.

This is bizarre and unnerving and so SO unusual that this architect's head exploded. And that's not a bad thing at all.