Dongfangzhimen - The Big Pants Building

It is said that China builds, on average, a new skyscraper every five days. And, with the countries continued efforts to forge forward with the growth of mega-cities seemingly overnight, some of those buildings aren’t going to please everyone. Nearly half of the twenty tallest buildings in the world currently reside in mainland China, and burgeoning new cities want to keep up with the ultra-modernist trends they have seen in Shanghai and Beijing. As a result, some pretty ‘out-there’ structures have appeared over the last few years, prompting premier Xi Jin Ping himself to criticize the trend, calling for designers not to ‘engage in weird buildings’.

Completed in 2016, as part of the rapid modernization of Suzhou’s SIP district, Dongfangzhimen has risen up over the central Jinji lake area and quickly become the icon most associated with the modern heart of the city. However, reactions to its construction across social media and among locals ranged from appreciation to down-right mockery. Many citing that it resembles a pair of long-johns or jeans since its two towers meet at the top, not unlike Beijing’s own CCTV building.

The $700m concept was supposed to represent Suzhou’s growing role in modern China, welcoming in new industry and technology (read foreign money) whilst harkening back to it’s key location on the Silk Road in days gone by. Instead, it has led many people to poke fun at the area which feels like ‘living beneath the crotch’, as one netizen reported.

To further cheapen the attempted experience of living in a luxury metropolitan city centre, the building is emblazoned with typically tacky LED displays of the features it was intended to promote, such as colourful yachting scenes or swirling DNA strands that drift across it’s pant legs as the sun sets.