TARGET 150603

DON'T CALL IT A DONUT!!!!

The donut building

The "Guangzhou Circle" building, ireverently called by some, "The Donut Building".

Bizarre buildings have increasingly been piercing China's skylines, earning the country a reputation for being "a playground for bad design."

Is this a real problem, just difference in aesthetics, or are there maybe just cultural misunderstandings?

It is the southern entry point of the city.

It stands at the southern entry point for the city by road, rail, or sea.

It is located in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, China, at the south west boundary of the city. It stands on the bank of the Pearl River, and is a sort of south gate of the city for people who arrive at the new south high speed railway station. It is the headquarters of the Hongda Xingye Group and the new home of Guangdong Plastic Exchange (GDPE), the world largest trading centre for raw plastic material with more than 25 billion euros of annual revenue.

It is a part of a larger complex

It is a part of a larger complex

While it may seem like a comical design to western eyes, the designer stated that he was looking for a design based on oriental psychology and perception, and focused on the Chinese use of symbols in their written language. In fact the building is also called an "urban ideogram".

From the year 9 AD The Chinese symbol for wealth and royalty

Pictured: charms from the Ta Ch'uan Wu Shih dynasty: year 9 AD and a jade double disc: the royal symbol of ancient Chinese dynasty.

What westerners might call the "oddity" of its shape is, in fact, caused by a misunderstanding that the circle with a hole in it is a very ancient symbol in China. As far back as the year 255 BC, Chinese monetary coins and charms have been circles with holes in the middle. Even in some of the Pacific island cultures, stretching back into prehistoric times, a "coin" may be a stone weighing almost a ton, with a toroidal or "donut-shape".

The double circle, shown above, was the symbol for Chinese royalty as far back as 7 BC. The Guangzhou Circle building presents that image when the waters of the Pearl River are calm and reflect an upside-down image below it.

Actually cubical layers

The building is actually stacked flat floors...

with sides to make it look round

...with structural features on both sides to make it look round.


And, for our advanced viewers....

The building complex

The building is actually a 33-story business complex that breaks away from the Western design for skyscrapers. It contains office spaces for not only the Plastics Exchange, (bluegreen area), but also a trading floor (pink area), international offices (green area), Chinese-only offices (gray area), a 6-story shopping mall (yellow area), 2 underground floors, a 7-star hotel with a huge garden terrace and a helipad for its guests (turquoise area at top), and building manager's complex at the very top.
The total height is 138 meters (453 feet) and has 85.000 square metres (914,982 square feet) of floor area. It is the world's tallest circular building.

The hole in the middle

The hole in the middle.

The unique feature of the hole in the middle is 50 meters (164 feet) in diameter.


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If you got impressions for which this feedback is insufficient, more information,
pictures and videos can be found at the following web sites:

CRI English web site
Wikipedia
Sportstune.com: Very informative page on ancient Chinese coins
ArchDaily.com: Information on the architech & arthitecture
Gizmag: close-up & interior pictures
World's skycrapers page