China’s experiencing an economic boom right now, so why not build an enormous teapot building which will one day host 3D theaters and the country’s largest rollercoaster?
The Wanda Group announced in March that work was completed on the Wanda Cultural Tourism City Exhibition Center, a 40 billion yuan ($6.4 billion) investment project which they say was officially entered into China’s Book of Records as the “World’s largest clay teapot shaped building.” The center is located in Wuxi in the Binhu District. It has a floor area of 3.4 million square meters.
The Yixing clay teapot-inspired building will eventually be part of a “Tourism City” to be completed in 2017. The site will include a mall, a stage show, an outdoor theme park, a hotel, a bar district, a 3D interactive cinema which will stage ancient local myths, an indoor water park and two rollercoasters, which Wanda states will be the highest and fastest coasters in the country. The firm states the site will one day “rival Disneyland” and that doesn’t seem like an idle threat given the scope of what they plan to accomplish there.
“Largest teapot building” seems like a fairly narrow field for a world record, but there’s at least one other building in China that once vied for that honor. The distinction was previously held by the Museum of Tea Culture in Meitan, according to Oddity Central. The building is taller than the current champ, (73.8 meters compared to 38.8 meters) but the floor area in Wanda’s project completely dwarfs the tea museum, which has an area of 5,000 square meters. The museum has one thing the Wanda building doesn’t, however, an accompanying building shaped like a clay teacup. The museum looks more successful as a building than as a spectacle and it’s strange how a structure shaped like a giant teapot looks like an exercise in restraint when compared to the newer building.
Bill Rodgers is a Contributing Editor at CFile.
Above image: The Wanda Cultural Tourism City Exhibition Center by Wanda Group.
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The Wanda Cultural Tourism City Exhibition Center by Wanda Group.
The Wanda Cultural Tourism City Exhibition Center by Wanda Group.
The Wanda Cultural Tourism City Exhibition Center by Wanda Group.
The Wanda Cultural Tourism City Exhibition Center by Wanda Group.
The Museum of Tea Culture building in Meitan.
Read more about the Museum of Tea Culture at Oddity Central
Was good
Looks more like a Barbara Hepworth sculpture to me!