The November Issue of Urbane is Out

Gabriel Monroe | Nov 3, 2008 1:00 pm | Add a comment | 1022 reads

As all Urbane readers know, a helmet and road goggles can only protect so much. Many days, it seems the dangers of speedy freewheeling is not so nefarious as the street’s sludge of slowness. As Beijing’s Olympic dreamy traffic restrictions fade into ever-dimmer memory, this month’s “Car Crunch” feature takes a look at some potential solutions for Beijing’s gnashing gridlock.

In our other feature, “The Hunan Factor,” Madeleine O’Dea tells the story behind the SZ Art Center in 798, a homegrown complement to the mega-galleries (such as UCCA and Pace) that now loom large on the landscape of Chinese contemporary art.

In the Dwell section, we catch up with Beijing-native Hu Yan, the designer behind SQY-T’s innovative “Skin of the City” series of apparel. We sit down with Lyndon Neri, a veteran of Shanghai’s Three on the Bund, and talk with him about his concept for Beijing Whampoa Club, and have a look at architect Zhang Lei’s stylish-but-simple brick house designs in Jiangxi province. A selection of chic lighting options, gorgeous Khawachen Tibetan carpets, the sleekest new home theater projectors and an Afghan bender round out the attractions here.

That’s just the beginning, of course, of another rich cache of Urbane inquest. The November issue also features the spectacular new Aman Beijing by the Summer Palace for Travels in Style, as well as the story of large-scale forced migration on the Qinghai plateau, Manolo Valdés upcoming show at the National Museum of Art, video journalist Jimmy Wang, the boldness of Chinese Internet vigilantes, Xu Bing’s Forest Project in Kenya and much more. How did Guiyang, go from being the worst polluted city in the world to a model of the environmentally friendly “circular economy” concept? Read on.