Saturday, May 4, 2013

Awe-Inspiring Architecture around the World - V.2

As we continue to celebrate the awe-inspiring architecture of the last 20 years, this month our second pick is the Red Ribbon in the Chinese city of Qinhuangdao.

The Red Ribbon, China

Designed in 2006 principally by Kongjian Yu of Turenscape, the Red Ribbon is a kind of scarlet snake that spans about five hundred metres through the Tanghe River Park, a reclaimed green space in the city of Qinhuangdao in China. The Red Ribbon is made of steel and fibre glass and has four pavilions which are dotted along its length. They consist of white canopies in irregular, ink-blot shapes, where you can sit and contemplate the strip of the adjacent river. But the Red Ribbon is more than a place to sit: it is also a children’s climbing frame and a walkers’ path. It is perhaps at its most attractive and spectacular at night, when it glows like a tightly packed string of Chinese lanterns.