Shenzhen's Reincarnating Decibels
Brief dispatch from Asia
I am on a fifteenth floor apartment balcony in Shenzhen, China, overlooking its vast urban sprawl. Substack is behind the great wall, my writing tablet is not. This post will hit when we go to nearby Hong Kong in a few days.
Travel enough, places start reminding you of other places. First time I came here six years ago it vaguely reminded me of Los Angeles, if 10x'ed on density. This time, I keep hallucinating I'm in Singapore. Jetlagged in a cab, Binhai Boulevard (SZ) is West Coast Highway (SG), so atmospherically similar are these respective arterials. Hazy, tropical, high-density, East-Asian metropolises planned and built well after WWII with the concrete stacks of apartment towers streaming by to show for it.
This was actually by design. Singapore is known for having been highly influential to China's late 20th/early 21st century land planning and urban development. "As it stands, the Singapore model…is now poised to metastasize across Asia…there will be new Singapores across the entire mainland. Its model will be the stamp of China’s modernization." wrote Rem Koolhaas in 1995.1
Speaking of cabs, one marked difference between present day Shenzhen from six years ago is the great majority of cars on the road (and sidewalks -- more on that in a minute) are now electric. I observe without exaggeration that 80-90% of non-commercial vehicles on the roads are battery powered. The city air may be fresher for it (most of China’s energy comes from coal so perhaps the jury is out on air quality here) but most intriguing to me is the auditory implication. It's simply quieter, despite being a congested city gridded by four to eight lane superstreets. I admit without further qualification: it’s kinda nice.
I have less charitable reflections on the sidewalk. They're also huge, but that's not the problem. See, electric mobility also comes in moped form, that great transportation mainstay of most of the world’s cities. Here, surprisingly unrestrained and unregulated in their dominion over the sidewalk realm, their battery powertrains and soft rubber wheels make them silent as mice. It all seems to work out, no one makes contact. Pedestrian vigilance is way up, though.
Better to retreat to a nearby park, where there are (among many other curiosities I will not write of today) regularly and prominently distributed decibel meters. This is because Karaoke, line dancing, Tai Chi, and Chinese opera are park activities enabled or heavily augmented with battery-powered speakers. Their output is to be managed, for it is a dense area with residential buildings close-by.
Sounds like electrification made quieter streets, but louder parks. The combustion engine’s gone and reincarnated into zither bangers, blaring just enough so as not to upset the decibel posts.
All text, photos, and diagrams in article ©James Carrico unless otherwise cited.
Comments, thoughts, questions? Send me a note at jamescarrico@substack.com.
Reader reactions to the previous post: “Retrofits Unseen: John Hancock Tower, 1968 - present”
One thought I missed something:
You didn't explain why it's called the Hancock Tower!
John Hancock Insurance first occupied it for many years. They don't anymore so the building was technically renamed recently ("200 Clarendon") but I bet the "Hancock Tower" moniker will stick for long time.
Another texted me:
It's kind of funny to imagine how different the building ends up on the interior for each tenant.
It’s probably all over the place. On a somewhat related note, I once saw a stripped-down version of a floor which was between tenants:
Others responded on Substack Notes with their own observations of the building:
the vertical ‘notch’ is a striking exterior feature of the Hancock tower. Viewed from a distance, especially in daylight conditions, the notch often provides a tall, narrow strip of contrasting color compared to the sky blue of the surrounding panes. At certain seasons and angles, the notch reflects the sunset, lighting up in a brilliant reddish orange shaft of color. Other effects of the notch include a “lighthouse effect” when reflecting the bright disk of the sun from the upper floors.
And another fan of the stair retrofit:
In this age of work-from-home, video chat, zoom, teams, and a billion other ways to avoid the necessary human presence, it’s a balm to the soul to see the owners of Boston’s Hancock Tower investing in an enormous staircase inside the building. There is simply not enough drama in American buildings; this is a necessary exception. It ain’t no Spanish Steps but it’s a start. - William Collen of Ruins Substack
Permits for interconnecting stairs chugging right along in our post-Covid world…a big win for architecture!
Keep the comments/questions/criticism/disagreements/agreements coming. As always, you can write me by emailing jamescarrico@substack.com. Responses get addressed in the next post.
Koolhaas, Rem. “Singapore Songlines” from SMLXL. October 1995. Monacelli Press