Interview

LINGANG NEW CITY IS CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION NEAR SHANGHAI— A COMPLETE METROPOLIS FOR 800,000 PEOPLE. IT WAS DESIGNED BY HAMBURG-BASED ARCHITECT MEINHARD VON GERKAN, 72

Lingang New City will be bigger than Frankfurt one day. What is the current status?
The roads and canals have been laid out, as well as the sewer system and water and electricity supply lines. Two million trees have even been planted. That’s one of the wonderful things in China. Here in Germany you see nothing but dust and concrete at a construction site. In China you feel like you’re in a park.

How does one land such a huge contract?
We were there in 1999 when the Chinese invited 45 architects from all over the world to take a look at the area and enter the competition. At that time, half the land was still under water. Many square kilometers of earth were piled up, and an eight-meter dam was built facing the sea.

And then you locked yourself in for days on end to brainstorm?
No. The main idea occurred to me when I was on vacation at the Baltic Sea: there had to be a lake in the city center! Initially, it was the only idea I had for this project. I sketched it out on a piece of paper right away.

... and then transferred it to the computer ...
I’m not good with computers. So, using pencils and markers, I sketched the plan on paper. This first draft got us the contract in 2003.

In a sense, you localized your design in an empty space. Did you see that as a handicap or an advantage?
The landscape was completely empty. Not a single tree, just marshland with streams, flat as a pancake. For an architect this means complete freedom. But complete responsibility, too. What you plan has to make sense.

How do you make sense of a lake in the city center with a diameter of two and a half kilometers?
People thinking mainly in commercial or political terms have told us we’re crazy.We’re spending billions to build a city and we start by taking away the prime space right in the middle. But it’s the lake that gives the city its distinctive identity.

Is this kind of formal aspect enough for a concept?
No, the real reason has to do with my understanding of architecture as fulfilling the needs of human beings. Look at our cities: the centers are full of banks, insurance companies and buildings that are closed on weekends.When the inner city degenerates to a closed shop and is congested with traffic during the week, urban life simply cannot flourish.

So the purpose of the lake is to reduce traffic?
Exactly. And as you go further out of the center, the traffic is amazingly dispersed and reduced.The open central area provides nine kilometers of top-class waterfront addresses— a symbiosis of living, working and leisure.

Couldn’t you have achieved the same effect with a park?
With a park, I would have been concerned that it would later fall victim to further development. And I have an affinity for water. Here in Hamburg we have a similar situation with rivers like the Outer and Inner Alster, the Elbe and of course the port. Now that’s quality of life!

What will your city look like in the end?
Like a watch. The lake is at the center. From there, twelve roads radiate out to the periphery, crossing five ring roads. These are so precisely circular that you could set the steering wheel of your car into a single position as you drive and not stray from the road.

Isn’t that a bit schematic?
Of course. But I don’t see any reason to make a bend in the road if there are no obstacles in the way.

How is the city divided up?
The city has quarters measuring 840 by 840 meters, each of which can house about 20,000 inhabitants. The first quarter with the best position is the so-called Hamburg Quarter. It will be finished by the end of next year. It’s all going incredibly quickly.

And when will the entire city be finished?
Never. It’ll probably continue to grow. Not least because the world’s biggest port is being created there—on the open sea, at that. It is being built on a craggy island, Yangtze estuary, where the water is not deep enough to allow big ships to pass through. Our city will be equipped with all the logistics facilities for the new port. There will also be an industrial area with a kind of Silicon Valley, which we are also planning.

With such a large project there must be obstacles too?
Superstition is a major obstacle! People here insist that their apartment should lie on a north-south axis. It is not an official requirement, but an apartment without a southfacing window is regarded as inferior. This idea is deeply rooted in people’s minds. But it means that every district will consist of rows of houses all pointing in the same direction. We are trying to break down these long-standing reservations.

Who is actually backing the project?
A company that was founded by the municipal authority of Shanghai and the Chinese government. Now we are looking at refinancing, and construction rights will be granted to investors for this purpose.There is no ownership as such, only usage rights. In Germany we would call it leasehold.

You’ve designed airports, museums, railway stations and now a city. What’s next?
The great thing is that each new project opens up new possibilities to experiment, to push back the boundary a little further. I find that’s also the case with small projects.

For example?
I went to just as much trouble with a lookout tower for bird lovers at my vacation resort, Heiligenhafen. Incidentally, that wasn’t easy at all: when you plan an airport, you’re given all sorts of specifications.When it came to the lookout, I was responsible for everything.

What did you come up with?
It’s a 15-meter high wooden construction and it looks likes a sculpture—of a huge perching bird.

(Interview: Uschi Entenmann, Photo: Yvonne Berardi)