Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
h ere are literally dozens of development plans at various stages, many
headed by international fi rms. h e most infl uential architectural fi rm on
Chongming Island and Shanghai is arguably Skidmore, Owing and Merrill
(SOM). SOM developed Chongming's master plan to double the population
living there. SOM's most famous projects include the site for the 1933 Chi-
cago Century of Progress Exposition, Sears Tower, and John Hancock (Chi-
cago), the Istanbul Hilton, and the National Commercial Bank in Saudi
Arabia. SOM is also the builder of the Freedom Tower on the site of the
destroyed World Trade Center, and the Burj Kalifa (the largest skyscraper in
the world, reaching a half mile into the sky), which opened in Dubai in 2009
(and which stands, as of 2010, 95 percent empty, in an eff ective symbol of
the postbubble global economic standstill).
Long associated with modernism, SOM's focus, like Arup's, is increas-
ingly on “sustainability,” including an award-winning design of the Uni-
versity of California-Merced campus, and the Treasure Island plan.
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Even
before the Chongming master plan, SOM had already left a major imprint on
Shanghai, having built its (currently) tallest building, the iconic Jin Mao
Tower, in 1999 and Xintiandi, one of the most well-known and early contro-
versial redevelopments in China. In 1997, SOM's San Francisco o' ce estab-
lished the historic development concept for Xintiandi, implemented by
Wood and Zapata (as discussed in chapter 4, the project displaced a large
number of people and replaced them with a tourist-consumer destination).
Akin to the redevelopment of Faneuil Hall Marketplace development in Bos-
ton or Baltimore's Inner Harbor project, Shanghai's Xintiandi represents a
particular vision of urban and economic redevelopment that favors high-
end customers and tourists.
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SOM's Chongming master plan imagines the island as a major center for
shipyards and manufacturing of ship machinery, cranes, and other port
equipment. h e plan also focuses on Chongming's development as a recre-
ation and tourism area. SOM's plan calls for the urban development of eight
