Shenzhen Stock Exchange

This guide to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange follows OMA's decision to lift its three-storey podium thirty-six meters off the ground, floating above the public plaza as a deliberate metaphor. It traces the exchange's founding in December 1990, an act of political risk in a still-communist country, and the 1992 crisis that nearly shut it down before Deng Xiaoping's Southern Tour saved it. You'll hear how Rem Koolhaas described the finished building as a monument to the Pearl River Delta's transformation. Stand in the plaza and look straight up at the hovering platform above you.