#blob opera fan art

[trashartgalleries]

I colored da redraw! :D

Maybe I should add a second layer of color I the clothes 🤔

I'll reblog it if I do

Here's a bigger version of the old one:

[psychicvoidtale]

Multiverse!!!!

The another charaters

@that-unspeaking-sky-child @moritheincubus

Inspo :

[aslightaddity]

I think y’all should read this awesome fic by @thatpsychofromthemarket

anyways some fan art of it!

ID below

[a accumulation of drawings, one of Oswald in a phantom of the opera (2004) costume, one of Ed’s face with a line splitting it in two one side with a little more messy hair the other with neat hair, another drawing of Ed, partially obscured by black glitch like blobs, he looks dazed and confused there is blood on the side of his temples and on the hand he has pressed to it, there are some chapamge flutes clinking and a crudely drawn origami penguin against a dark grey background with red spiky star-like shapes that emit light. There is text at the top, middle, and bottom the top text reads When The Stars Turn Red the word stars is in the same red as the stars on the background. The middle text is by the drawing of Ed’s face that reads there is another, one version being mirrored on one side of his face. The bottom text is in a font akin to those used in silent films that reads ‘Can’t you see I love you?’ ] End ID

[skadi-gemini]

I posted 1,637 times in 2022

That's 1,617 more posts than 2021!

20 posts created (1%)

1,617 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@scarlettaagni

@roguemonsterfucker

@spockvarietyhour

@reh-hateshumans

@literalnobody

I tagged 51 of my posts in 2022

#my art - 6 posts

#skadi-gemini - 4 posts

#snowandmonsters - 4 posts

#tumblr milestone - 3 posts

#obsidian and kitty - 3 posts

#gothic romance - 3 posts

#mine - 3 posts

#my ocs - 3 posts

#terato - 2 posts

#ao3 - 2 posts

Longest Tag: 105 characters

#i’d also have a lazy river but then a big ass pool that gradually slopes from a beach to a turquoise pool

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

The Phantom of the Opera is having its final performance in 2023 in New York. I am SO upset I’ve never been able to go. And now I’ll NEVER be able to go!

It hurts my heart to imagine him singing “It’s over now, the music of the night!” and there being ACTUAL TEARS in the audience because it WILL BE OVER. Like, that has me crying today. I love this musical so much and it was one of those that was a gateway to Broadway musicals and my love for them. (Don’t get me started on Hamilton 🥹)

I’m just…devastated. Let me spread a virtual comfort hug to my fellow fans who could never afford to go.

12 notes - Posted September 30, 2022

#4

It was good to see Johnny Depp winning his case against Amber Heard. Her testimonies were all over the place and she did some horrific things to him. I hope he can now find peace and move on to start healing. It’s honestly shocking that there are people who blindly believed her when there wasn’t any evidence to support that she was the victim. The Me Too movement was something Heard took advantage of to push a narrative forward that made herself look good. I hope more victims of domestic violence will get the courage to step forward and seek justice. This will be the first and last post about this as I don’t want to clog it with this kind of stuff.

13 notes - Posted June 2, 2022

#3

My fan art for The Monster and the Butterfly by @theboarsbride on Ao3. I was looking at old gothic romance covers and was inspired to draw this.

I pictured Sophie walking a dark hall with only the light of a candelabra while the monstrous shadow of Edgar in the candlelight, his fingers long, spindly, and clawed like Dracula’s, reaching out to touch her. Her light, however, keeps him from touching her with his darkness. Sophie, unbeknownst to her, also has a shadow that follows in her wake, a shapeless blob created by her own self-doubts and melancholy. In this work I kept her a beacon in the darkness; that darkness not necessarily a bad thing as we’ve seen.

Even though the pointed shape beneath his arm looks like a beak, it’s really not, as it’s just his nose and below that, his chin. I do, however, liked how his silhouette came out Raven-like, harking back to the Edgar Allen Poe tales where he yearned for belonging; to feel like he matters to the world.

I ran out of room to spell “Butterfly”, so I drew one instead. This was drawn with charcoal and pencil, smudging with fingers to smooth out the shadows. Sophie sports a Gibson girl hairstyle and a dress with the silhouette of the area she lives in.

Thanks to @theboarsbride for creating such wonderful characters!

20 notes - Posted April 11, 2022

#2

The amount of TERFS coming out of the woodworks concerning trans athletes Lia Thomas is disheartening. I saw it become ugly in a Feminism group on Facebook. They won’t see it but I thank the owners of that page, Feminism News, for supporting Miss Thomas. People only care about woman’s sports when it’s news that there is a trans athlete competing.

Even with evidence of trans athletes having no proven “biological advantage” for having a “male body”, they continue on with their harmful narratives. There is a clear difference between sex and gender which many people need to educate themselves on. By taking part in this narrative, these people, almost all afab women themselves, are helping to promote the bullshit that people like J.K. Rowling spout. It’s harmful and doesn’t make you a good ally with the LGBT+ community.

Do better.

152 notes - Posted March 21, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

My first attempt at a Capybara! I was heavily inspired by @capydoodle ! Their cute Capybara’s give me a boost of seratonin every day!

I wanted this little guy to look like he was sunbathing in a flourishing spring field.

153 notes - Posted April 18, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[evenstevensranked]

#11: Season 3, Episode 11 - “Hardly Famous”

An off-brand Harry Connick Jr. comes to town and holds auditions at LJH for a new performing arts school! Seeking change in her life, Tawny decides to audition and kills it! Louis’ world crumbles around him at the thought of her transferring -- to the point where he’d do anything to get into that school. ANYTHING...

This one opens with a handsome and famous guy by the name of Barry Hudson Jr. (who’s definitely supposed to be a “Great Value” Harry Connick Jr.), arriving at LJH in a freaking chopper lol. Of course, Ren is right there alongside Principal Wexler to welcome him! We learn that he’s there in search of talented recruits for a new performing arts school dubbed the Sacramento Arts Conservatory for Creative Youth a.k.a. “SACCY” (pronounced “sassy,” of course.) This is a very important moment because Barry asks Ren if she’ll be auditioning and she says “Um, no. I wish I could, but auditions are only for 7th and 8th graders,” yet Ren is still a student at Lawrence. This is subtly confirming once again that LJH does, in fact, include grades 7th-9th! Meaning Louis and his friends have moved up to 8th grade. I wonder why they never made a big deal about that or acknowledged it clearly? I feel like it would’ve been a good plot point for an episode or at least a passing comment like “We’re EIGHTH GRADERS NOW, guys! We’re no longer the Scrubs of the school. We’ve got the fancy bathroom with assorted toiletries!” I could totally see Louis saying something like that as a callback to Easy Crier, lol. Oh well. The common misconception that they stay in 7th grade for the whole series lives on... 

Hello, Not Harry Connick Jr. Nice to meet you! 

Ren is scheduled to be Barry’s “coordinator” for the duration of his stay, I mean... who else?! Actually, I’ll tell ya who else... State Senator Eileen Stevens shows up outta nowhere and gushes over Barry, claiming to be his biggest fan. Ren claims to be a big fan too, which is kinda weird? If he is based on Harry, he would’ve been around 36 at this point in his career and Ren is like... 15. But then again, Wexler mentioned that Barry is a Broadway star and we know that Ren is into opera and theater. So, maybe that makes sense. Anyway, Eileen mentions that she sponsored the bill that funded SACCY which is pretty cool imo, but she ends up fangirling and offers to give Barry a tour of the school as an excuse to spend time with him because she’s State Senator Eileen Stevens and can do whatever she wants.

It cuts to Tawny and Tom in the hallway chatting about SACCY. Tom’s planning on auditioning with a tap dance routine, but Tawny says he should sing instead because that’s really his “strength.” We’ll get to THAT later, lol. Tom is excited about the idea of going to school with ~sophistated artistic~ kids. Tawny tries to argue that there are kids like that at Lawrence, but right about then is when Louis and Twitty come walking over holding a “gum blob��� made up of used gum they’ve collected from every nook and cranny around the school. Very sophisticated, indeed. Needless to say, Tawny and Tom are disgusted. 

Tawny and Tom both tossed the blob into the air after realizing how many diseases it might be carrying and Louis is about to have a heart attack. Also this screenshot makes it look like Shia doesn’t have legs below the knee? I’m perplexed. 

At lunch that day, Louis is taunting Tom about wanting to go to SACCY and how embarrassing it would be. Twitty agrees and says “Everyone in that school is gonna be walking around in tights and feathered caps! Does that sound like fun?!” Tom slowly replies “Well..... What color’s the feather?” which cracks me up. There’s an immediate collective groan from Louis and Twitty which is great. Tawny defends Tom’s desire to attend a school where people “appreciate the beautiful things in life,” which... being talented and going to an arts school isn’t a prerequisite to appreciating the beautiful things in life but ok. Louis says that he finds used gum beautiful and Tawny has had enough.

It cuts to the audition room where everyone is setting up. Eileen returns with Barry after giving him that school tour which ran overtime because she didn’t know where anything was. Wow! Eileen also took this opportunity to invite Barry to dinner. Yikes! 

The auditions start up and we get a montage. Louis and Twitty are sitting in to support Tom, but spend their time making fun of the other auditioners while they wait. You might’ve seen these gifs floating around the interwebz: 

As you can see in the first one, Tawny is so over their antics. I love how they’re not even discreet about it tho?! Like, what the heck that’s so obnoxious to do while someone’s auditioning -- especially in a small classroom. I would’a kicked them outta there so fast!

It’s finally Tom’s turn to audition and Doris (who is played by Fred Meyers’ real-life mom, btw!!) is there to accompany him on piano lol. He performs “Dear Old Dad” which is about wanting to marry a girl who is just like your mom. Oh, my lord. Tom’s relationship with Doris is such a strange one. I can’t tell if it’s innocent or a ridiculously inappropriate obvious in-joke like Miranda Sings and Uncle Jim. Either way, he completely butchers the song and it’s fantastic. Part of me always assumed it was a song written for the show and the other part of me always hoped it was a real song. I never bothered to google it until today and I’m oddly happy to discover that it’s legit. After the audition, Tom casually says “So long, suckers!” as he walks off arrogant as all heck arm n’ arm with Doris. He thinks he’s got it in the bag. I can’t. Remember how Tawny said that singing is what Tom is best at? Imagine being so untalented that singing horribly is your strong suit.

It had to be gif’d because Tom is always quality content. 

Louis and Twitty are about to peace out now that Tom’s audition is over, when suddenly... Tawny’s name is called as the next auditioner. AWWWWW, SNAP!!!! The slopski’s hit the fanski now, guys. The juicy drama has arrived. Tawny’s auditioning for the theater department and explains that her reasoning for doing so is because she’s “ready for a change.” Twitty is all “Dude, I think she’s serious,” and Louis retorts “OH, YA THINK SO?!” I love sarcastic Louis, man. 

Tawny proceeds to perform the most melodramatic monologue from fictional production “Fried Green Magnolias” HAHA. (An obvious humorous combination of the films Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias.) I have no idea how Margo Harshman kept a straight face when she hits the reveal “...he wasn’t just a turtle. He was my best friend” line. To be honest though, this scene is a great example of the stark contrast between the talent Disney Channel was churning out back then in comparison to now. Margo is playing a character within a character who’s also playing a character in this scene and she is selling the hell out of it. Whereas newer Disney actors can’t even pull off a regular ‘ol crying scene without looking like they’re laughing. So, yeah. Tawny kills the audition and everyone’s raving about her performance. Louis is immediately torn up about Tawny wanting to leave LJH and the fact that she’s pretty much a lock to get into the school. 

My heart. 

Louis approaches Tawny later that day and congratulates her on a great audition, but he’s clearly itching to know why the heck she wants to leave when Louis ~the love of her life~ Stevens is right in front of her, damn it! But of course, he’s not gonna come right out and ask that. Tawny is pretty dead set on transferring if she gets in. Louis beats around the bush saying things like “You realize what you’ll be leaving behind, right....? Like... Pizza Stick Thursday! And, ya know that water fountain on the 2nd floor? The water isn’t even brown anymore, IT’S JUST TAN!” Tawny is unimpressed and says that it’s gonna take a little more than “almost clear water” to make her stay. I always got a kick outta this, lol. She explains that she wants to be around people who care about things. So, basically, her decision was motivated by being fed up with Louis’ immaturity. You can tell that Louis is crushed about this. I love it. We’ve seen time and time again that Tawny’s opinion means the world to him. 

It cuts to dinner that night at the Stevens house where Barry Hudson Jr. makes his grand appearance. Eileen and Ren are dressed to the nines and continuing to fawn over Barry. The best part of this bit is when Steve finishes preparing cheese and crackers and announces “I just cut some cheese in the kitchen. Why don’t we all go in there!” I love Tom Virtue. The tables eventually turn though when Barry recognizes Steve as Steve “Stiffy” Stevens (which is definitely another innuendo) from his football days when he played for Michigan State. Apparently, that’s Barry’s alma mater and now he’s the one totally fanboying. 

The dinner turns into a nostalgic football sesh between Barry and Steve, leaving Ren and Eileen totally ostracized lol. Louis interrupts and pulls Ren aside to talk. This is really where the episode starts tugging at the heartstrings. Louis pretty much begs for her to help him get an audition for SACCY. Ren immediately knows that the real reason he wants to audition is because of Tawny, she thinks it’s sweet of him -- but all of the slots are already taken. Louis will not take no for an answer and we get one of the greatest moments that foreshadowed Shia LaBeouf’s future. He shouts “JUST DO IT, REN! If ya say ya can, ya can!!!” I made a Vine about this and it was my Vine claim to fame with nearly 1M loops. *takes a bow.*

Ren ends up working some magic and gets Louis an audition the next day. Oh, man. This is so great. Louis drags Twitty into it and the two do a totally improvised interpretive dance narrated by Tom. Tom also has an incredible line before they start the audition: “I’d just like to take this opportunity to say that although I was not selected to attend SACCY, I bear no ill will towards Barry Hudson Jr. or any member of his family.” He says it in the most menacing and creepy voice. TOM IS THE BEST. Louis and Twitty begin their audition and, well... It’s one for the books...

I’ve flip-flopped over how I feel about this scene. I used to be in absolute stitches, then I thought it was cringy for a while, but now I’m back to dying laughing. This is definitely one of the best moments ever, lol. Doris rocked that banjo solo. 

Tawny is me when she witnesses the audition and accepts the fact that she’s unconditionally in love with Louis and the great lengths he’ll go to in order to stay close to her. She kinda melts there for a sec. Same. 

Later that day, Louis comes to terms with Tawny possibly leaving and decides to be mature about it and wish her good luck. But Tawny lies and says she didn’t get in. “It’s okay. I don’t mind staying here with.... my friends. :)” she coos, and the emotional piano kicks in as Tawny heads outside to catch her ride home. I’d like to point out that Tawny has a goofy picture of Louis in her locker here. Precious. She also has a photo of her and Popular Mute Tad Taylor from the Sadie Hawkins Dance too! As well as a photo of the first show The Twitty-Stevens Connection played together. Ahh. I love these tiny details. Again, it makes the show’s universe feel more authentic. 

Just then, Louis runs into Ren and rants to her about Barry Hudson Jr. not knowing what talent is! (“Uhhh... You really stunk up there,” / “No, no, no. Not me! Tawny!”) hahahahaha. He’s so confused as to why she didn’t get in because “her audition was awesome.” Ren agrees and discloses “yeah, that’s why she got accepted. But she told me she wasn’t going...” Louis puts two and two together and runs after Tawny in true rom-com fashion. I’m a sucker for this. He catches her right as she’s getting into her mom’s car and the lil lovebirds share an ~emotional~ glance across the parking lot.

THE MOST UNDERRATED DISNEY CHANNEL PAIRING OF ALL TIME RIGHT HERE!!!! What a love story, tbh.

And that’s it!

The final minute bit is Louis deciding to give up the gum blob and pass it down to Beans. Undoubtedly because owning a gum blob is immature and Tawny makes Louis wanna be a better man basically. Gotta love dat development. 

Note the sad clown painting on Louis’ wall! He painted that back in Season 2′s “Ren-Gate.” Such a small detail I never noticed before. Love it!  

This was always one of my favorites. I love this episode. Mainly because of the Louis/Tawny storyline, of course. I thoroughly enjoy seeing hopeless and confused Louis here doing everything in his power to stay close to Tawny and ultimately grow up a bit in the end. The dinner with Barry is probably the lowest point, but it doesn’t go on for too long so I’m not bothered by it. This is just a solid episode all around. It’s got character development, ace comedy, emotional weight, and a few great quotes! 

Thanks for reading! We’re officially hitting the Top 10 now and I cannot believe it. Wow. 

Don’t forget about the Disqus comment section below ;) 

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[sailorvinus]

"Vi! Vi, you have to see this." Here she is with a laptop. "It's called Blob Opera and it's some art AI thing where you plug music in and these four voices play it back. They've already got Bohemian Rhapsody."

✨ @lovedefiant this is what the jetsons were talking about.

❝Technology is for this, right? Like, fuck deepfakes and robots putting people out of employment and all that other useless, dumb shit we don't need. This is the future. Look at this. LISTEN to them, like an angelic gathering of blobby, wobbly, jiggly creatures that could probably lure me to my death if they sang a Christina Aguilera song.❞ Five notes of ' Your Body ' and he'd be gone! They wouldn't even have to reach the WHoOoAAooohoHoOoOaaahOOHoAHHoh in the chorus.

Look at ‘em go... Their voices were beautiful, too. And, he’d be thinking about them. With his eyes closed. At night. In bed. In his sleep. Deep, deep, deep in his REM cycles. ❝I'll be sure to make a stan Twitter for them and then blackmail people in other fandoms in their honor until I’m swiftly banned for going too far. It's the right thing to do when you're a fan of something.❞ 

[topsolarpanels]

Put us on the map, please: China’s smaller cities go wild for starchitecture

From mountain-shaped apartment blocks to the centre of braised chicken reinventing itself as Solar Valley, Chinas second( and third) tier cities are hiring big-name architects to get them noticed

From egg-shaped concert hall to skyscrapers reminiscent of big pairs of pants, Chinas top cities are famously full of curious monuments to architectural ambition. But as land costs in the main metropolises have shot into the stratosphere, developers have been scrambling to buy up plots in the countrys second and third-tier cities, spawning a new generation of delirious plans in the provinces. President Xi Jinping may have issued a directive last year prohibiting oversized, xenocentric, weird houses, but many of these schemes were already well under way; his diktat has proved to be no obstacle to mayoral hubris yet.

From Harbin City of Music to Dezhou Solar Valley, provincial capitals are branding themselves as themed enclaves of culture and industry to attract inward investment, and commissioning ratings of bold buildings to match. Even where there is no demand, city bureaucrats are relentlessly selling off land for developing, hawking plots as the primary form of income accounting for 80% of municipal revenues in some cases. In the last two months alone, 50 Chinese cities received a total of 453 bn yuan( 54 bn) from land auctions, a 73% increase on last year, and its the provincial capitals that are resulting the way.

At the same time, Xis national culture drive has find countless museums, concert halls and opera houses spring up across the country, often used as sweeteners for land bargains, conceived as the pearls at the centre of glistening mixed-used visions( that sometimes never arrive ). Culture, said Xi, is a precondition of the great renaissance of the Chinese people, but it has also proved to be a powerful lubricant for ever more real estate supposition even if the production of content to fill these great vestibules cant quite keep up with the insatiable build boom. From mountain-shaped apartment blocks to cavernous libraries, heres a glimpse of whats emerging in the regions.

Fake Hills, Beihai

A render of how the Fake Hills would look. Illustration: MAD architects

Forming an 800 metre-long cliff-face along the coast of the southern port city of Beihai, the Fake Hills housing block is the work of Ma Yansong, Chinas homegrown conjuror of sinuous, globular sorts whose practise is appropriately named MAD. Having examined at Yale and worked with Zaha Hadid in London, where he nourished his penchant for blobs, Ma has spent the last decade dreaming up improbable mountain-shaped megastructures across the country.

Less scenic mountain and more lumpen collision of colossal cruise-liners The first phase of construction on Fake Hills has been completed. Photograph: MAD

As it rises and falls, the undulating roofline of Fake Hills kinds terraces for badminton and tennis tribunals, as well as a garden and swimming pool. Sadly the overall impact is less scenic mountain range than a lumpen collision of colossal cruise-liners.

Greenland Tower, Chengdu

Greenland Tower, Chengdu. The build harks back to the crystalline dreamings of early 20 th-century German designer Bruno Taut. Illustration: Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture

A crystalline spire rising 468 metres above the 18 million-strong metropolis of Chengdu, the Greenland Tower will be the tallest building in southwestern China, standing as a sharply chiselled monument to the countrys( and by some counts the worlds) largest real estate developers, Greenland Holding. It is designed by Chicago-based Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill, designers of Dubais Burj Khalifa, who say the faceted shaft is a reference to the unique ice mountain topography of the region. It harks back to the crystalline dreams of early 20 th-century German architect Bruno Taut, who imagined a dazzling glass city crown to celebrate socialism and agriculture; whether Sichuans farmers will be welcomed into the penthouse sky garden remains to be seen.

Sun-Moon mansion, Dezhou

A contender to Silicon Valley the Sun-Moon mansion of Solar Valley, Dezhou. Photo: Alamy

Once known as a centre of braised chicken production, the city of Dezhou in the north-eastern province of Shandong now brands itself as Solar Valley, a renewable energy centre intended to rival Californias Silicon Valley. At its heart is the Sun-Moon mansion, a vast fan-shaped office build powered by an arc of solar panel on its roof. It is the brainchild of Huang Ming, aka Chinas sun king, an oil industry technologist turned solar energy tycoon who heads the Himin Solar Energy Group, the worlds biggest producer of solar water heaters as well as purveyor of sun-warmed toilet seats and solar-powered Tibetan prayer wheels.

Harbin Opera House

Harbin Opera House, with the St Petersburg of the east in the background. Photograph: View Pictures/ Rex/ Shutterstock

Nicknamed the St Petersburg of the east, the far northern city of Harbin has long had a thriving cultural scene as a gateway to Russia and beyond. In the 1920 s, manners from Paris and Moscow arrived here before they reached Shanghai, and it was home to the countrys first symphony orchestra, made up of mostly Russian musicians.

Inside Harbin Opera House. Photo: Opinion Pictures/ Rex/ Shutterstock

Declared city of music in 2010, Harbin has recently pumped millions into a glitter new concert hall by Arata Isozaki, a gargantuan neo-classical conservatory and an 80,000 sq metre whipped meringue of an opera house by MAD. Shaped like a pair of snowy dunes, up which guests can climb on snaking routes, the building contains a sinuous timber-lined auditorium designed as an eroded block of wood.

Tianjin Binhai library

Tianjin Binhai library. Illustration: MVRDV

Due to open this summer in the sprawling port city of Tianjin, this space-age library by Dutch architects MVRDV is imagined as a gaping cave of volumes, carved out from within an oblong glass block. The shelves form a terraced scenery of seating, wrapping around a giant mirrored sphere auditorium that nestles in the middle of the space like a pearl in an oyster.

Inside the space-age Tianjin Binhai library. Illustration: MVRDV

Along with a new theater, congress centre and a science and technology museum by Bernard Tschumi, the building forms part of a new cultural one-quarter for the city, itself being swallowed into the schemed Beijing-Tianjin mega-region population 130 million, thats more than Japan .

Huaguoyuan Towers, Guiyang

Arups twin towers are almost complete. Illustration: LWK& Partners

Nowhere in China is the disparity between economic reality and architectural ambition more stark than in Guiyang, capital of rural Guizhou, the poorest province in the country, which has the fifth most skyscraper schemes of any Chinese city. The twin 335 -metre towers of the Huaguoyuan development, by Arup, are now almost complete, standing as the centrepiece of a new mixed-use office, retail and amusement complex, while SOM is busy conjuring the even higher Cultural Plaza Tower, a 521 -metre glass spear that will soar above a new riverfront world of shopping malls and theatres. It has the glitz and gloss of any other Chinese citys new central business district, but as Knight Franks David Ji points out: It will be hard for a city like Guiyang to find quality renters to fill the space.

Yubei agricultural park, Chongqing

Will Alsops Yubei agricultural park. Illustration: Will Alsop

Architectural funster Will Alsop may ultimately have found his calling in the supercharged furnace of Chinas second-tier cities booming leisure economy, crafting a number of fantastical dreamworlds from his new satellite studio in Chongqing where he is busy constructing a new culture quarter around his own office, with a eatery, bar and distillery. He is also plotting an enormous agricultural leisure park in Yubei, 20 miles north of the city, designed to cater to the new middle classes nascent appreciation of the countryside, a place hitherto links with peasants and poverty. The rolling landscape will be dotted with cocoon-like treehouses, a flower-shaped hotel and a big lagoon covered by an LED-screen canopy, so visitors can enjoy projected blue skies despite the smog.

Zendai Himalayas centre, Nanjing

A limestone mountain range: Zendai Himalayas Centre, Nanjing. Illustration: www.i-mad.com

Erupting across six city blocks like a limestone mountain range, the Zendai Himalayas Centre is likely to be Mas most literal interpretation yet of his doctrine of fusing architecture and nature. Taking inspiration from the traditional style of shanshui scenery brush paint( literally meaning mountain-water ), the 560,000 sq metre complex is designed to look as if it has been eroded by millennia of gust and water , not thrown up overnight by an army of migrant labourers. Once again, Ma appears to be forgetting that elegant feathery brushstrokes dont often translate well into clods of glass and steel. It is one of many such green-fingered strategies in Nanjing, including Stefano Boeris vertical wood towers and the Sifang art park, where Steven Holl, SANAA, David Adjaye and others have constructed pavilions in a rolled landscape as another decoy for a luxury real estate project.

Huawei campus, Dongguan

A render of Huawei campus, Dongguan, which is based on 12 European towns

Telecoms giant Huawei has courted suits for copying from challengers in the past, but its love of imitating clearly extends to architecture too. The companys new campus, under construction on a 300 -acre site in Dongguan, is based on 12 European townships. There are the dreaming steeples of Oxford, the quaint redbrick houses of Bruges, the palazzos of Verona and the chateaux of Burgundy, all connected by a meander Swiss railway. It might look like a theme park, but the employees will have little time for leisure: Huaweis founder likens his staff to a pack of hungry wolves and offers them a dedicated employee arrangement to voluntarily forgo paid holiday and overtime.

Guardian Cities is dedicating a week to the huge but often unreported cities on the front line of Chinas unprecedented urbanisation. Explore our coverage here and follow us on Facebook. Share stories via WeChat( GuardianCities) and by employing #OtherChina on Twitter and Instagram

Read more: www.theguardian.com

The post Put us on the map, please: China’s smaller cities go wild for starchitecture appeared first on Top Rated Solar Panels.

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[viralhottopics]

Put us on the map, please: China’s smaller cities go wild for starchitecture

From mountain-shaped apartment blocks to the centre of braised chicken reinventing itself as Solar Valley, Chinas second (and third) tier cities are hiring big-name architects to get them noticed

From egg-shaped concert halls to skyscrapers reminiscent of big pairs of pants, Chinas top cities are famously full of curious monuments to architectural ambition. But as land prices in the main metropolises have shot into the stratosphere, developers have been scrambling to buy up plots in the countrys second and third-tier cities, spawning a new generation of delirious plans in the provinces. President Xi Jinping may have issued a directive last year outlawing oversized, xenocentric, weird buildings, but many of these schemes were already well under way; his diktat has proved to be no obstacle to mayoral hubris yet.

From Harbin City of Music to Dezhou Solar Valley, provincial capitals are branding themselves as themed enclaves of culture and industry to attract inward investment, and commissioning scores of bold buildings to match. Even where there is no demand, city bureaucrats are relentlessly selling off land for development, hawking plots as the primary form of income accounting for 80% of municipal revenues in some cases. In the last two months alone, 50 Chinese cities received a total of 453bn yuan (54bn) from land auctions , a 73% increase on last year, and its the provincial capitals that are leading the way.

At the same time, Xis national culture drive has seen countless museums, concert halls and opera houses spring up across the country, often used as sweeteners for land deals, conceived as the jewels at the centre of glistening mixed-used visions (that sometimes never arrive). Culture, said Xi, is the prerequisite of the great renaissance of the Chinese people, but it has also proved to be a powerful lubricant for ever more real estate speculation even if the production of content to fill these great halls cant quite keep up with the insatiable building boom. From mountain-shaped apartment blocks to cavernous libraries, heres a glimpse of whats emerging in the regions.

Fake Hills, Beihai

A render of how the Fake Hills would look. Illustration: MAD architects

Forming an 800 metre-long cliff-face along the coast of the southern port city of Beihai, the Fake Hills housing block is the work of Ma Yansong, Chinas homegrown conjuror of sinuous, globular forms whose practice is appropriately named MAD. Having studied at Yale and worked with Zaha Hadid in London, where he nourished his penchant for blobs, Ma has spent the last decade dreaming up improbable mountain-shaped megastructures across the country.

Less scenic mountain and more lumpen collision of colossal cruise-liners The first phase of construction on Fake Hills has been completed. Photograph: MAD

As it rises and falls, the undulating roofline of Fake Hills forms terraces for badminton and tennis courts, as well as a garden and swimming pool. Sadly the overall effect is less scenic mountain range than a lumpen collision of colossal cruise-liners.

Greenland Tower, Chengdu

Greenland Tower, Chengdu. The building harks back to the crystalline dreams of early 20th-century German architect Bruno Taut. Illustration: Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture

A crystalline spire rising 468 metres above the 18 million-strong metropolis of Chengdu, the Greenland Tower will be the tallest building in southwestern China, standing as a sharply chiselled monument to the countrys (and by some counts the worlds) largest property developer, Greenland Holdings. It is designed by Chicago-based Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill, architects of Dubais Burj Khalifa, who say the faceted shaft is a reference to the unique ice mountain topography of the region. It harks back to the crystalline dreams of early 20th-century German architect Bruno Taut, who imagined a dazzling glass city crown to celebrate socialism and agriculture; whether Sichuans farmers will be welcomed into the penthouse sky garden remains to be seen.

Sun-Moon mansion, Dezhou

A rival to Silicon Valley the Sun-Moon mansion of Solar Valley, Dezhou. Photograph: Alamy

Once known as a centre of braised chicken production, the city of Dezhou in the north-eastern province of Shandong now brands itself as Solar Valley, a renewable energy centre intended to rival Californias Silicon Valley. At its heart is the Sun-Moon mansion, a vast fan-shaped office building powered by an arc of solar panels on its roof. It is the brainchild of Huang Ming, aka Chinas sun king, an oil industry engineer turned solar energy tycoon who heads the Himin Solar Energy Group, the worlds biggest producer of solar water heaters as well as purveyor of sun-warmed toilet seats and solar-powered Tibetan prayer wheels.

Harbin Opera House

Harbin Opera House, with the St Petersburg of the east in the background. Photograph: View Pictures/Rex/Shutterstock

Nicknamed the St Petersburg of the east, the far northern city of Harbin has long had a thriving cultural scene as a gateway to Russia and beyond. In the 1920s, fashions from Paris and Moscow arrived here before they reached Shanghai, and it was home to the countrys first symphony orchestra, made up of mostly Russian musicians.

Inside Harbin Opera House. Photograph: View Pictures/Rex/Shutterstock

Declared city of music in 2010, Harbin has recently pumped millions into a gleaming new concert hall by Arata Isozaki, a gargantuan neo-classical conservatory and an 80,000 sq metre whipped meringue of an opera house by MAD. Shaped like a pair of snowy dunes, up which visitors can climb on snaking paths, the building contains a sinuous timber-lined auditorium designed as an eroded block of wood.

Tianjin Binhai library

Tianjin Binhai library. Illustration: MVRDV

Due to open this summer in the sprawling port city of Tianjin, this space-age library by Dutch architects MVRDV is imagined as a gaping cave of books, carved out from within an oblong glass block. The shelves form a terraced landscape of seating, wrapping around a giant mirrored sphere auditorium that nestles in the middle of the space like a pearl in an oyster.

Inside the space-age Tianjin Binhai library. Illustration: MVRDV

Along with a new theatre, congress centre and a science and technology museum by Bernard Tschumi, the building forms part of a new cultural quarter for the city, itself being swallowed into the planned Beijing-Tianjin mega-region population 130 million, thats more than Japan.

Huaguoyuan Towers, Guiyang

Arups twin towers are almost complete. Illustration: LWK & Partners

Nowhere in China is the disparity between economic reality and architectural ambition more stark than in Guiyang, capital of rural Guizhou, the poorest province in the country, which has the fifth most skyscraper plans of any Chinese city. The twin 335-metre towers of the Huaguoyuan development, by Arup, are now almost complete, standing as the centrepiece of a new mixed-use office, retail and entertainment complex, while SOM is busy conjuring the even higher Cultural Plaza Tower, a 521-metre glass spear that will soar above a new riverfront world of shopping malls and theatres. It has the glitz and gloss of any other Chinese citys new central business district, but as Knight Franks David Ji points out: It will be hard for a city like Guiyang to find quality tenants to fill the space.

Yubei agricultural park, Chongqing

Will Alsops Yubei agricultural park. Illustration: Will Alsop

Architectural funster Will Alsop may finally have found his calling in the supercharged furnace of Chinas second-tier cities booming leisure economy, crafting a number of fantastical dreamworlds from his new satellite studio in Chongqing where he is busy building a new cultural quarter around his own office, with a restaurant, bar and distillery. He is also plotting an enormous agricultural leisure park in Yubei, 20 miles north of the city, designed to cater to the new middle classes nascent appreciation of the countryside, a place hitherto associated with peasants and poverty. The rolling landscape will be dotted with cocoon-like treehouses, a flower-shaped hotel and a big lake covered by an LED-screen canopy, so visitors can enjoy projected blue skies despite the smog.

Zendai Himalayas centre, Nanjing

A limestone mountain range : Zendai Himalayas Centre, Nanjing. Illustration: www.i-mad.com

Erupting across six city blocks like a limestone mountain range, the Zendai Himalayas Centre will be Mas most literal interpretation yet of his philosophy of fusing architecture and nature. Taking inspiration from the traditional style of shanshui landscape brush painting (literally meaning mountain-water), the 560,000 sq metre complex is designed to look as if it has been eroded by millennia of wind and water, not thrown up overnight by an army of migrant labourers. Once again, Ma appears to be forgetting that elegant feathery brushstrokes dont often translate well into lumps of glass and steel. It is one of many such green-fingered schemes in Nanjing, including Stefano Boeris vertical forest towers and the Sifang art park, where Steven Holl, SANAA, David Adjaye and others have built pavilions in a rolling landscape as another decoy for a luxury real estate project.

Huawei campus, Dongguan

A render of Huawei campus, Dongguan, which is based on 12 European towns

Telecoms giant Huawei has courted lawsuits for copying from rivals in the past, but its love of imitating clearly extends to architecture too. The companys new campus, under construction on a 300-acre site in Dongguan, is based on 12 European towns. There are the dreaming spires of Oxford, the quaint redbrick houses of Bruges, the palazzos of Verona and the chateaux of Burgundy, all connected by a meandering Swiss railway. It might look like a theme park, but the employees will have little time for leisure: Huaweis founder likens his staff to a pack of hungry wolves and offers them a dedicated employee agreement to voluntarily forgo paid holiday and overtime.

Guardian Cities is dedicating a week to the huge but often unreported cities on the front line of Chinas unprecedented urbanisation. Explore our coverage here and follow us on Facebook. Share stories via WeChat (GuardianCities) and by using #OtherChina on Twitter and Instagram

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from Put us on the map, please: China’s smaller cities go wild for starchitecture

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