Saturday, August 30, 2014

PLA Headquarter Hong Kong

China wants to replace USA, but sometimes goes too far.  Word is they are moving armored personnel carriers into Hong Kong, a city virtually weapon-free among the citizens (although it is not uncommon to see Sikhs and Gurkhas casually carrying shotguns here and there.)  Fellas, don't worry, the people of Hong Kong will demonstrate at the drop of a hat, because they love freedom, but they are not about to overthrow anyone or anything.  Don't be like USA.  USA needs to get back to being like Hong Kong.

This all comes to mind at the mention of the PLA headquarters, a rather unusual building.  Look how the base is constricted.  it was built for the British Navy, and is still popularly called the Prince of Wales  Building.

Wikipedia
Crossing Hong Kong harbor in circa 1979 my jaw dropped to see the building, long before the PLA had occupied it.  It was after a fashion a copy of a Seattle bank building, the Rainier bank building, previous NB 0f C bank which had upgraded its image given the fact USA went off the gold standard and there was no rational limit to lending credit on the most whimsical business propositions.  There was also no rational limit to consolidation through junk bonds either, and Rainier Bank got bought by Security Pacific which got bought by ... ad nauseum.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rainier_Tower_in_Seattle.jpg
The building is now called "Rainier Square" and it was completed in 1977, two years before the Prince of Wales Building.  Note the same constricted bottom, apparently only two of these worldwide.  the joke in Seattle at the time is the architects had read the blueprints upside down.  Anyway, at the time Hong Kong was a copier instead of an innovator.  And now they are an innovator.

feng shui school sharon hay
http://www.canadianfengshui.ca/hongkong.htm
For example where else in the world do they delete six stories to make room for dragons to fly through?

As a side note the fellow who designed the Rainier Tower had previously designed the IBM building across the street...

Ibm building in seattle.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Building_(Seattle)
and if that looks familiar it is because shortly thereafter he was commissioned to design the twin towers of the NYC WTC, of sad memory, which was virtually a quintupled height and doubled version of the Seattle building (Rockefellers did not want to spend on architects, or for that matter, ideas.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_World_Trade_Center
So there is the connection between the PLA headquarters in Hong Kong and the World Trade Center in New York, of sad memory.  China, don't follow USA too closely!  Be more "China!"

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1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another unusual building: North Korea's Hotel of Doom:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2245054/Welcome-Hotel-Doom-The-3-000-room-monstrosity-Kim-Jong-Uns-starving-dictatorship-North-Korea-foreigner-stepped-inside--now.html