Beijing - The Shape of Things to Come

Deyan Sudjic

for The Observer - Beijing has rebuilt itself faster than any city on earth, turning from a warren of alleys into a capital fit for a superpower. No wonder the world’s top architects - from Foster to Koolhaas - have flocked to make their mark on it. Here, the director of the Design Museum judges the stand-out buildings of the new era.

Very few architects say in public that they will not build in Beijing. The only notable dissident is Daniel Libeskind of Ground Zero fame, who has questioned the seemliness of building for an authoritarian and undemocratic regime, under which construction workers endure the most primitive of conditions, with minimal safety provisions and poor wages.

A few more, having experienced the minimal fees offered by most Chinese developers, have quietly refused to work there. But that has not stopped an unprecedented architectural stampede, led by Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster, and Jacques Herzog.

Despite everything, there is a sense that building here is one of those rare chances architects get to make history, so how can they say no? This is a capital that has rebuilt itself faster than any other in the history of the world. In two decades it has moved from the middle ages, with an overlay of bicycles and Stalinism, to a shimmering surreal vision, two parts Las Vegas, two parts Dubai, and five parts the most brutally unequal capitalist society on earth…. more from the Guardian

JJ is the co-founder of 5ft Creatives and he is now a legal alien in the USA