Китай Построил Самое Большое Здание В Мире, И Устроил Внутри Него Пляж

In a city virtually unheard of outside Asia, more than a thousand kilometers from the nearest ocean, China has built the largest building on Earth by floor area. The New Century Global Center in Chengdu is so enormous that the entire Pentagon could fit inside it roughly three times over. Under one roof, it houses a shopping mall, a thousand-room Intercontinental Hotel, office towers, an IMAX theater, an ice rink, and conference halls—and at the very heart of it all, an indoor beach with a wave pool, a lazy river, a pirate ship, and an artificial sun that keeps the interior perpetually sunny, every single day of the year. These numbers are hard to believe, even when you see them with your own eyes. But the story behind this building is no less bizarre than the building itself. The developer, who spent ten years putting this project together, was arrested just months before the opening and never made it to the ribbon-cutting. The politician who pushed the entire project ultimately received thirteen years in prison. The cultural center designed by world-famous architect Zaha Hadid, promised as part of the land deal, was quietly never built. Since then, the building itself has passed through the hands of a state-owned enterprise, one of China's most aggressive development giants, and a debt crisis that has shaken the entire real estate industry. This is the complete story of how the world's largest building was built, who paid for it, and why it still stands. #china #technology #geopolitics