[...] Team China beat out Team Kazakhstan to host the games. Zhangjiakou, a city of 4 million people in the mountains of Hebei province, will host the games alongside Beijing. [...]

They're worried I'll talk to people like Lu Wanku, who will be forced to move to make way for the region’s investment boom. Lu herds cattle and has lived in his tiny brick home for more than 20 years. His home is now in the way of a Four Seasons Town Dream Resort ski run. [...] Lu has two weeks to move out. — marketplace.org

In Stefano Cerio's series “Chinese Fun,” he explores the facades of amusement without an audience’s reaction. The photographer enters areas built for fun and leisure in the off months or closing hours, exploring the absurdity that creeps into the architecture of entertainment when there is no one to enjoy it but a single camera. — Colossal

For decades, China’s government has tried to limit the size of Beijing, the capital, through draconian residency permits. Now, the government has embarked on an ambitious plan to make Beijing the center of a new supercity of 130 million people.

The planned megalopolis, a metropolitan area that would be about six times the size of New York’s, is meant to revamp northern China’s economy and become a laboratory for modern urban growth. — nytimes.com

“The library is a tool to attract people to the village,” said Mr. Li, a professor of architecture at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

When visitors come to see the library, he said, they also spend money at the village’s few restaurants, pay parking fees and donate money for the building’s upkeep.

“The place is special,” said Li Wenli, 45, an insurance saleswoman from Beijing [...]. — nytimes.com

In Beijing, Ai Weiwei is back with a vengeance. The dissident Chinese artist has had four solo shows in the Chinese capital, ending an implicit exhibition ban that had been in place since his arrest in 2011. The fact that the shows, which opened in June, were permitted with minimal interference beyond one amended opening date surprised everyone, including Ai. “I never planned to have a few shows all at once,” Ai tells us. — The Art Newspaper

Archeologists have unearthed a massive tomb complex in a southwest suburb in Beijing, according to the Beijing Institute of Cultural Heritage on Monday.

They said the complex is a rare discovery given its size, time span and location.

The 70 hectare archeological site consists of 129 tombs built over 1,100 years, spanning from the East Han Dynasty (25-220) to Tang Dynasty (618-907) and Liao (907-1125). — chinadaily.com.cn

For 70 years, Mr. Wu has ridden out the country’s political storms, including one that killed his mentor, to establish himself as the most influential architect, urban planner and éminence grise of China’s cities. But looking out the window of his apartment in this city’s northern suburbs, he can only shake his head at the dim building emerging from the haze.

“Our environment is unfit for daily life, and the responsibility is very heavy on our shoulders,” he said. — nytimes.com

China's smog-shrouded, overcrowded, traffic-choked capital has become unlivable.

And that's not the assessment of some tourist or disgruntled cubicle-dweller: That's the mayor talking. [...]

"In establishing a top-tier, internationalized livable and harmonious city, Beijing is currently establishing a system of standards, something that is very important," Wang said in comments reported by state news outlets. "At the present time, however, Beijing is not a livable city." — VICE

The Courtyard House Plug-in is a modular home that was created by People’s Architecture Office to respond to the need of Beijing’s historic neighborhoods for modern facilities. [...]

This sort of living solution comes in handy when renovating old protected buildings and presents an alternative to tearing them down. “Houses tend to degrade when they’re vacant and unkempt,” says Shen, so plug-ins may help keep places like Hutongs alive despite their beat up look. — popupcity.net

The French architect Jean Nouvel has announced details of his design for the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. [...]

“The National Art Museum of China represents an incredible opportunity for the most ambitious materialisation of a place of expression… a place that witnesses the vitality of a civilisation, the civilisation of the greatest people on earth,” say the organisers. — theartnewspaper.com