The Aesthetics of Waste: Reflections on the New Shanghai

Architecture in Asian cities like Shanghai exhibit a heady excess, wantonly empty spaces and playfully inefficient shapes. Mies van der Rohe, that exponent of rectilinear rectitude, would be horrified. China has been shifting from socialist optimization and a poverty mentality, to that hallmark of an advanced society—namely conscious waste. Pointlessly jogging in the streets, and the dieting industry must seem a meaningless energy waste to the calorie-deprived in developing countries. Saint Valentine of 4th Century Europe boosts purchases and traffic jams in 21st century China. A diamond ring adds little to bodily well-being, although much to the world GNP.