Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 2. Chongming Bridge. Photo by Smyth, Creative Commons License
Twentieth-century China was full of stories of transnational builders
and engineers who remade the nation in their own interests and images. For
example, builders and engineers associated with the American Red Cross
built thousands of miles of roads in China in the 1920s, and U.S. automakers
helped expand this system, in part to increase their market share. One of the
fi rst major highways in China was built by a Hong Kong-based developer
and Princeton-trained engineer named Gordon Wu, who designed it
expressly in the image of the New Jersey Turnpike in the 1990s.
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Bridges and major infrastructure are more than mere technical and engi-
neering marvels. Terry Hill, Arup's chairman, claims that “engineering is
more than a profession—it's a way of thinking about the world.”
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What then,
is the “way of thinking about the world” in Chongming's new infrastruc-
ture? What is thought, sought, and attained with the Changjiang Tunnel-
Bridge Expressway is power and control over the vagaries of nature, mastery
