Shenzhen Cultural Center

This guide to the Shenzhen Cultural Center traces the city's leap from fish ponds and paddy fields in 1980 to a Special Economic Zone, and the moment planners called in Japanese architect Arata Isozaki to give Shenzhen something it had never had, a place built for listening. It walks through the library and concert hall he designed as a pair, one dressed as a harp of glass and steel, the other in the five colors of Chinese elemental tradition, and describes a hall that carries sound without a single speaker. Listen for the sculptural trees marking each entrance.