Tag: swfc

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CHINA Photography

The future is here now

city center, originally uploaded by ~mimo~.

Shanghai grows in front of our eyes at a staggering speed. When we moved here over 6 years ago, the SWFC (also known as the bottle opener), currently the tallest building in Shanghai was barely visible at its early stages of construction. Now, the new shanghai tower has risen to almost the height of the jin mao tower and the ifc twin towers are standing and buzzing with life. The circular walking bridge is also a new addition and it keeps on going and transforming on a daily basis.

Via Flickr:
odc~ starts with c
A view of Shanghai’s financial district from the oriental pearl tower.
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architecture Photography street

Day Two Hundred Eighty One, October 30, 2011

Shanghai sky

Funny how certain events stay engraved in our minds forever and are triggered by visual means for the rest of our lives. I was living in New York at the time of 911 and had witnessed the whole disaster from the rooftop of my downtown Nolita office. It was horrific to say the least seeing that and experiencing it so closely. Since then, seeing a plane next to a high rise triggers a stream of unwelcome memories and emotions.

photo taken: from the Shangri La Hotel in Pudong, Shanghai looking up to the Jin Mao building and the Shanghai World Financial Center, aka bottle opener.

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Photography

Day One Hundred Sixteen, July 26, 2011

soaring steel

Shanghai, a city of soaring steel, a Gotham of Asia, a place that races to stamp it’s place in the modern world as a mighty metropolis and uses every resource it has to fulfill its visions of greatness. Every day of the week, of moment of the day and night, workers toil to add more and more height to the skyline of the city. These magnificent architectural creations are a wonder to behold, and they look different depending where you stand. Today, I was standing in between the twin towers of the IFC tower and the HSBC bank making the Jin Mao builiding and SWFC (nicknamed the bottle opener) look shorter in the distance.

Yes, I do miss the wild flowers living in Shanghai…

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Photography

Day One Hundred Fifty One, June 22, 2011

electric!

Shanghai summers are home for sudden and powerful electrical storms. Today we were at the pool for the first very hot day of the summer and at some point the storm arrived. I love how scientist try to explain this incredible phenomena without being able to agree on a single explanation. I spent the last hour surfing the science pages and reading about the subject only to be convinced that they cannot reasonably explain it and they do not really understand it. And here we were standing under an outstanding electrical storm and everything in me wanted to just be in awe of the wonder of it and to be impressed by its power with no need for “sensible” explanations. Lea and I just wow’ed at it repeatedly as I took some shots and I am sure that the next time another one comes around I will be just as impressed!

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Photography

Day Eighty, April 12, 2011

looking differently

Familiarity is our biggest enemy in life isn’t it? It creates the illusion that we already know something, that we understand it. But life is not really like that. There are so many ways to look at something, anything. There are so many levels to things, to truths, to people, to thoughts, that we will never really stop searching if we put aside our familiarity.

This building in Shanghai is fascinating: It was designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox, in such a way that from each place you stand it looks completely different, and I mean completely! Every time I see it I marvel at these simple truths. Nothing is as it seems…

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Photography

Day Forty Five, March 8, 2011

And Shanghai keeps on growing

上海 Shanghai, to literally mean the “upper sea”, perhaps due to its closeness to the ocean, is a city destined for growth and prosperity. As the most populated (about 20 million people) city in mainland China, it has become the economical and financial center of all China. Living in Shanghai meant being constantly aware of change. It develops at a very fast rate and does not give any sign of slowing down. During my walk today I saw through this door of a new construction site in Pudong the two landmark towers of Shanghai and realized that when we moved to Shanghai the taller building (SWFC), also called the bottle opener was a construction site…I wonder what Shanghai will look like a few years from now!

They say if something is not growing then it can only be dying. Shanghai is definitely growing…

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Photography

Day Twenty One, February 12, 2011

She is the teenager of cities, she is glitzy Shanghai

Today was a beautiful sunny, crisp and freezing day in Shanghai. I impulsively decided to take the ferry across the river from Pudong to Puxi (literally east of river to west of river) and took pictures from the bund looking onto Pudong skyline. It was exhilarating to say the least to witness a rare clear sunset and mix with so many people (wish I could show you the rest of the pictures, but one a day, right?)

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Photography

Day nine, January 31, 2011

Shanghai drives China to new heights

Today, the last day of January, and the beginning of the New Year’s hype in Shanghai, I walked around the downtown financial area in Pudong, which happens to be our neighborhood. Pudong is home to the high rises that are the pride of modern China. When we first moved here in 2006, the Jin Mao building(on the left), was standing proud and towering over everything else around it, then very rapidly the way a mushroom sprouts overnight, the SWFC(on the right) appeared as if out of nowhere and it stood in competition with Taipei 101 in Taiwan. Now, the new giant of Shanghai is rising rapidly it is mind boggling. Shanghai tower which threatens to tower over 632 meters high in a spiraling glass design. It is just incredible to witness the explosion of a metropolis like Shanghai and to see it happening outside your window…