I knew that whenever you read articles , or look at slide slows on the internet about beautiful buildings and innovative architecture, or whenever you watch those engineering programs on the Discovery Channel about how they built some amazing building, they always make them look a lot more interesting than they are.
When we visited Tropical Islands in Germany, I was expecting a tropical paradise miraculously transported to the northlands, but it’s just a big water park. The kids thought it was great, that’s exactly what they were expecting, but I’d made the mistake of believing the hype.
Nonetheless, I think this looks brilliant. Architecturally, it is striking. It fits in well with the landscape, built into the cliffside, with the top exactly flush so that if you enter it from ground level, the only way to go is down.
More importantly, though, is that it’s built in an abandoned strip mine, an environmentally degraded place, a gash in the Earth, a place which otherwise might be an eyesore and a safety hazard. By building this, the Chinese are recycling the Earth. Making money at it, too.
Opening Soon
That is the way things should go in the future. As David Letterman has frequently pointed out, we are already well past the tipping point on global warming (We are screwed, is how he puts it.)
We stripped the world of many of its great forests centuries ago, when we switched from being hunter-gatherers to being farmers and went forth and were fruitful and peopled the Earth. We have dammed all the rivers and built our cities, giant concrete beehives, everywhere there is a serviceable harbor.
We will certainly never be able to restore the world to the way it was before we got here, but with a little bit of creative engineering and architecture, we may be able to create a new paradise, a man made Eden. It will take a lot more than this, but it’s a small step in the right direction.
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