The world's Habitat day, the United States famous architect Paul Katz to solve the problem of skyscraper construction focus

Does China need skyscrapers? --an interview with famous American architect Paul Katz

October 3 World Habitat Day, the United States famous architect Paul Katz Paul Katz in New York to receive an interview with the New Society reporter, answered the skyscraper construction problem focus and "doubt", as well as the future of Chinese architecture development.

"Density" is one of the most important factors to be considered in building construction, Katz told reporters. China, he says, is still scarce compared to many other parts of the world. Building skyscrapers can effectively alleviate the shortage of land use, and better development of other industries such as agriculture.

Katz said that from the perspective of social and economic development, building skyscrapers is the trend of the development of large and medium-sized cities, from the perspective of sustainable development, to ensure that the density of the environment and energy conservation are beneficial.

When it comes to the design and innovation of modern skyscrapers in China, Katz laughs that he is not a "fan" of CCTV's new headquarters building. Ensuring the structural stability of skyscrapers is a topic of concern for everyone, he said.

Katz says this does not mean that skyscrapers should be built to behave, but the aesthetic habits of local people may be better. At the same time, building skyscrapers needs to take full account of the city's cultural background and environmental restrictions, as far as possible to avoid "impact" effect.

He said, for example, that the World Trade Plaza (ICC), the tallest building in Hong Kong, which he designed, was seamless with the surroundings, the ICC and the nearby ports and squares, and the traffic was also very convenient, and the ICC's height did not arouse much doubt locally.

The theme of this year's World Habitat Day is "cities and climate change". When the reporter asked Katz about the energy consumption of skyscrapers, he said, there is no scientific data that the skyscraper itself is energy-consuming, waste of energy is mostly due to the use of building personnel, in the current building structure design and material use, etc., has been striving for energy saving and consumption.

Katz believes that, compared with decades ago, today's skyscraper design has improved a lot, and now the building design in pursuit of "environment-friendly" standards, of course, further improvement is necessary.

This year is the 10 anniversary of the terrorist attacks, and many people remain sceptical about the skyscraper's prevention of terrorism. Katz said the incident was very special. He admits that both skyscrapers and low-rise buildings are hard to withstand, and that the Pentagon, not skyscrapers, was hit by planes in the "attacks" and also suffered heavy losses.

He said that in addition to terrorist attacks, any building will face a variety of other challenges, such as earthquakes, fires and so on. And in the United States, the current skyscraper in the design are aware of these hidden dangers, once encountered emergency, the loss will generally be smaller than ordinary low buildings.

Katz also recounted to reporters the interesting experience he had spent years walking around the alleys of Beijing and Shanghai. He agreed to protect the hutongs and other historical sites, while stressing the importance of rapid development on the basis of planning. In his view, building buildings and protecting monuments are not contradictory, in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo and other places can find historical buildings and modern buildings in harmony with the example.

Katz said that China's recent more than 20 years of development, in the past in China to build a high-rise also to import materials from abroad, now there is no such necessity; China breeds the future of architecture, is a good place for architects to grow, and helps them to experiment and innovate on buildings.

Katz and his KPF building firm are renowned for their skyscrapers, with the exception of the ICC, the world's tallest flat-topped building--the 492-meter-high skyscrapers of Shanghai's global financial Center.

Reporter Li