Claiming to be the world’s largest building by floor space, the 1,760,000m2 of the New Century Global Center (新世紀環球中心) are a monument to growing Chinese consumer power, packed with shoppers — and beach bathers 1,000km from the coast.
Home to hundreds of shops, restaurants, offices, a cinema and ice rink, the cavernous building in Chengdu, deep in southwestern China, also hosts a water park featuring a pool modeled on the seaside.
“The indoor ocean attracts me more with lots of facilities and activities like surfing and water skiing,” said Gao Nini, 31, who paradoxically traveled from the coastal city of Qingdao to visit.
“We have the sea, but I’m worried I would get tanned,” she said of visiting the beach in her home town.
Ringed by a concrete beach, hundreds of bathers — wearing obligatory life vests — splashed in the waters’ artificial waves, which are generated at intervals.
Behind them stood a bell tower resembling St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, and a monumental screen relaying South Korean pop videos.
The Global Center project has seemingly defied critics, who condemned it when it opened in 2013 as an example of China’s wasteful construction boom, which has left swathes of empty houses outside many cities.
Along with a railway line to Europe and a convention center that recently hosted a G20 finance ministers’ conference, the massive structure is part of Chengdu’s bid for top-tier city status.
Exact figures are not known, but the local government is reported to have spent more than US$6 billion on it.
The Chengdu Commercial Daily reported that 90 percent of commercial space in the complex has been rented, while a staff member told reporters that about 8,000 office workers commute there each day.
Even so, it has not escaped political controversy, with reports linking its construction to Zhou Bin (周斌), the jailed son of former Chinese minister of public security Zhou Yongkang (周永康), who was last year jailed for bribery.
The millionaire behind the building, Deng Hong (鄧鴻), went missing during a probe into Zhou Yongkang, but was later released, local media said.
Inside the center, the pool is ringed by restaurants where customers in swimsuits ate pizza and drank hot orange juice — but the hard-surface beach left some pining for a genuine seaside experience.
“I have never seen the real sea, but I want to see one and go surfing,” seven-year-old Liu Qingsong said. “The [artificial] sea looks good, but it’s not as good as the real one.”
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