Hangzhou Int'l. Conference Center

This guide to the Hangzhou International Conference Center follows architect Xia Bangjie's plan to answer the silver, crescent-shaped Hangzhou Grand Theatre across the Qiantang River with a golden sphere of his own, sun facing moon. You'll hear how welders and glaziers faced an engineering problem nobody in China had solved at this scale: wrapping an eighty-five-meter steel ball in thousands of gold honeycomb panels, almost no two alike. Look up at the mosaic overhead and notice how the seams disappear into one unbroken curve.