Chinese Archimage Phenomena

Thames Town may look exactly like an English country village, but it's actually 25 miles southwest of Shanghai. It's one of nine new towns Shanghai planners hope will relieve population pressures in the city center. The town's market square even has its own statue of Winston Churchill. Yang Jinghui and Zi Haiying pose for wedding photographs in front of Thames Town's church. Even Thames Town's security guards have special touches to their uniforms that seem designed to evoke English pageantry. INTERACTIVE GRAPHIC: Learn about the nine foreign-style new towns in Shanghai's suburbs. [via  npr ] Shanghai's city planners are carrying out an ambitious scheme to relieve population pressure: They are resettling 500,000 people in nine new towns in the suburbs. Each is built in a distinctive style, including an Italian town with canals based on Venice and a German town designed by Albert Speer, the son of Hitler's favorite architect. Thames Town is one of these n...

"This controversial 326 metre high elevator takes you up the side of one of the many enormous cliffs in zhangjiajie, china - the lower 1/3 running from a cavern through the rock, the top 2/3 rising outside to the summit - and is the highest and heaviest outdoor elevator in the world. the elevator has an uncertain future due to the potential harm caused to the surrounding landscape." --deputydog [via deputydog ]

The $2.4 billion Venetian Macao Resort Hotel is finally open for business on Macau's Cotai at end of August 2007. Las Vegas Sands claims the 10.5 million square foot (1 million square meters) Venetian — twice the size of the Las Vegas original — is the largest building in Asia. [via shanghaiist & the venetian ]