Chengdu's colossal New Century Global Center is big enough to accommodate the Sydney Opera House 20 times over.
Seemingly locked in a battle for superlative supremacy, China and Dubai continue to construct a dizzying number of record-breaking attractions. Home to Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, Dubai has this year inaugurated the world’s biggest natural flower garden, the world’s tallest hotel and the world’s tallest twisted tower . China, meanwhile, is preparing to open a ‘groundscraper’ cave hotel that will burrow 19 storeys below the ground, and it has now opened the world’s largest freestanding building in Chengdu.
Named New Century Global Center, the colossal structure is 500 metres long, 400 metres wide and 100 metres high, and contains a total floor space of 1.7million square metres. Providing a sense of scale, the Sydney Morning Herald reports that the building is large enough to accommodate the Sydney Opera House 20 times over.
Visitors to the attraction may find it somewhat less highbrow than Australia’s famed cultural attraction, however. The building will house cinemas, shopping centres, office space, hotels, conference centres, a water theme park with artificial beach and various other attractions including a replica Mediterranean village.
In south-western China, Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province and home to 14million people. One of the country’s largest and most populous cities, it is currently undergoing an intense phase of development with plans in place to extend its underground network by 183 kilometres by 2020. The ongoing development of a ‘Software Park’ within Chengdu forms part of the city’s efforts to create a local ‘Silicon Valley’. Some 29,000 companies are currently based in Chengdu’s 130-square-kilometre “hi-tech development zone”.
Given the speed and ambition of development locally, New Century Global Center may not be Chengdu’s most significant structure for long. Residents and visitors will have good reason to visit the building for years to come, however. Chengdu’s rapid development has meant the city is regularly blanketed by smog. New Century Global Center includes an artificial sun that will shine and emanate heat for 24 hours each day, and a giant 150-metre-long screen will project an artificial horizon and display sunrises and sunsets as the days pass.
See more pictures of New Century Global Center
SEE ALSO: Why China's Copycat Buildings Are Actually Good For Architecture