On View at SFO-Shanghai: High-Rise Architecture and the Remaking of China’s Gateway to the World

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On View at SFO:
Shanghai: High-Rise Architecture and the Remaking of China’s Gateway to the World

SAN FRANCISCO —  Shanghai: High-Rise Architecture and the Remaking of China’s Gateway to the World, a new exhibition at San Francisco International Airport, features models, drawings, photographs, and digital animation representing eleven architectural projects at the forefront of the transformation of China’s most modern, cosmopolitan city. Through the objects on view, the exhibition explores how the city’s rapidly changing skyline reveals its social, cultural and economic revival.

As China emerges as a global economic power in the twenty-first century, Beijing is investing and attracting enormous capital to help Shanghai compete with Hong Kong and Singapore as one of Asia’s most important economic hubs. Consistent with Shanghai’s tradition as a place of intersection for Eastern and Western ideas, international design competitions have resulted in global architecture firms working with local architects on a variety of daring and imaginative high-rise projects. The exhibition illustrates the results of these efforts, including three buildings at the heart of the master plan for Shanghai’s redevelopment: SOM’s pagoda-like Jin Mao Tower, KPF’s Shanghai World Financial Center with its distinctive, trapezoidal aperture, and Gensler’s soaring, asymmetrical Shanghai Tower. A particular emphasis is given to Shanghai Tower, which, when completed in 2014, will be China’s tallest building and a model for a new generation of sustainably designed super-high-rise towers. 

Images from the exhibition are available for download at http://www.flysfo.com/web/page/about/news/pressres/exh-shanghai.html.

Shanghai: High-Rise Architecture and the Remaking of China’s Gateway to the World is on view from April 30 through October 17, 2010. The exhibition is located pre-security in the International Terminal Main Hall, Departures Level. There is no charge to view the exhibition.

Shanghai: High-Rise Architecture and the Remaking of China’s Gateway to the World is part of Shanghai Celebration, a yearlong festival presented by more than 30 San Francisco Bay Area organizations to honor the region’s unique and historic relationship with Shanghai. Shanghai Celebration programming coincides with World Expo 2010 Shanghai China. The expo’s theme, “Better City, Better Life,” reflects the organizers’ goal of inspiring sustainable and harmonious urban development.

San Francisco Airport Museums

The San Francisco Airport Museums program was established by the Airport Commission in 1980 for the purposes of humanizing the Airport environment, providing visibility for the unique cultural life of San Francisco, and providing educational services for the traveling public. The Museum was granted initial accreditation from the American Association of Museums in 1999, reaccredited in 2005, and has the distinction of being the only accredited museum in an airport.  Today, the San Francisco Airport Museums features approximately twenty galleries throughout the Airport terminals displaying a rotating schedule of art, history, science, and cultural exhibitions, as well as the San Francisco Airport Commission Aviation Library and Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum, a permanent collection dedicated to the history of commercial aviation.

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About San Francisco International Airport

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