Chines premier Xi Jinping has put a stop to the weird skyscrapers springing up across China.
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The country’s economic revolution has inspired architects to try and outdo each other in a mad scramble to construct the strangest designs.
But the president criticised developers and companies for wasting money on wired, egocentric and oversized buildings.
The latest and the one believed to have led to the ban is the Gate of the Orient in Suzhou, called ‘A Pair of Pants’ by locals.
The twin towers stand 74 storeys tall and resembles a pair of blue jeans.
The HQ of Central China TV is nowhere as tall, but looks like a shiny glass and steel pair of boxer shorts, according to locals in Beijing.
Terracotta tea pot
One of the oddest is the terracotta Meitan Tea Museum which is unsurprisingly shaped like a giant kettle and cup.
The kettle is 74 metres high and reflects the cultural and economic significance of tea to Southern Guizhou.
Then there’s the piano and violin building in Huainan, which is a performance and rehearsal space for musicians at a local university.
The glass violin is a giant atrium, which gives access to music zones within the giant grand piano.
But three of the oddest buildings make all these seem positively normal.
First is the Mobile Phone Building in Kunming. The 11 storey building adopts the keypad buttons as windows and the screen is a giant penthouse viewing platform. The building is gripped by a huge hand rising out of the roofs below.
Undesirable cities
Next is the baijiu bottle building dominating a distillery producing the white spirit and housing a theme park devoted to the alcoholic drink in Sichaun.
But the oddest of the odd is the Tianzi Hotel, Hebei.
The hotel is built within the bodies of three enormous statues of gods that are 10 storeys high.
They represent luck, long life and prosperity and come complete with robes, beards and staffs.
“Art should not be self-serving but should serve the people and improve their environment,” said the president.
“Buildings should inspire and I want to see architecture that offers culture and cleans up the undesirable look of some of our cities.”
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