New Century Global Center, Chengdu

1 · POSITION

The New Century Global Center in Chengdu is a building made to hold a resort indoors: a beach, a Mediterranean village, a water park and two large hotels under one roof, lit by an artificial sun. Built between 2010 and 2013 by Deng Hong’s Entertainment and Travel Group, it was announced as the largest building in the world by floor area, and it enters the register as the extreme case of hospitality enclosed. [1, 2, 3]

2 · THE SCALE

It stands 100 metres high over 18 floors. Its floor area is given as 1,700,000 square metres in one account and 1,760,000 in another. A contemporary report measured it in other buildings: twenty Sydney Opera Houses, four St Peter’s Squares or three Pentagons would fit inside. Nearly 400,000 square metres are given to shopping, with an IMAX cinema and a skating rink. [1, 2, 3]

3 · THE INDOOR SEA

The centrepiece is the Paradise Island water park, with an artificial beach of 5,000 square metres. The report of its opening describes a fake Mediterranean village beside it, and the whole lit by a fake sun. The city it serves had been struck by the 2008 earthquake, which killed nearly 70,000 people, and was being rebuilt as the complex rose. [1, 3]

4 · THE HOTELS

Two luxury hotels of about 1,000 rooms each were reported at the opening. The building’s own encyclopedia entry describes an InterContinental of 1,009 rooms planned in blocks around the complex’s edge. The scale of the rooms matches the scale of the building: it was conceived as a destination in its own right rather than as a mall with a hotel attached. [1, 3]

5 · ⚑ CANDOUR

⚑ The opening is dated three ways — late June 2013 in a report of that July, 1 July 2013 and a delayed 22 August 2013 in the same encyclopedia entry — and all three are printed. Its rank is given two ways: the largest building in the world by floor area in two sources, the third-largest in a later account. The planned March 2013 conference was moved after the developer’s arrest, a fact recorded without the circumstances. What operates the hotels today is not established. [1–3]