Earlier this week, we published comments by Prof. Albert Speer regarding the so-called Dongtan “eco-city,” which is slated to begin construction this year on Chongming Island, near Shanghai. “The ultimate verdict on Dongtan will be determined by more tangible factors than marketing value,” Speer concluded. “The success of ecological architecture must be judged on whether running costs for the city are lower, despite the higher development costs. The technologies are already known, they are not new. Our experience from working on Anting New Town [also in Shanghai], is that, ultimately, the development costs were higher and so were the running costs.”

We have received a strong response to this article, and so are republishing an In Conversation feature article with Prof. Speer, which was first published in April 2007 by That’s Shanghai magazine. In the interview, Speer touched on his company’s urban planning projects from Frankfurt to Riyadh and Changchun to Baku, Beijing’s Olympic architecture, satellite cities in China and the notoriety of his father. Below, we have republished the article in full

“It’s a little bit complicated,” smiles Albert Speer. One of Germany’s most acclaimed urban planners and founder of the Frankfurt-based AS&P architect and planning consultancy. Speer still seems mystified as to why he is in such demand for assisting in the “beautiful challenges” of redeveloping urban China. Sipping on a fruit juice in the 37th-floor executive lounge of the Four Seasons hotel – a vantage point that usually affords a dramatic vista of Shanghai’s metropolitan cityscape, but which today is cast in a thick, grey gloom – he attempts to explain, both to me and also, I sense, to himself.

“I first came to China in 1997 as a member of a German governmental delegation. We visited Shanghai, Beijing and Nanjing to see the development of new cities and housing areas. I was impressed,” says the charismatic seventy-something with a laser-sharp mind and a novelist’s turn of phrase, delivered in faultless, German-accented English. “My office had been working on projects across the world for many years, and I thought China was the future. So I went back and told my younger colleagues: ‘I am going to build a new city in China.’ They all fell about laughing.”

The sense of hilarity was soon dispelled as AS&P was asked to tender for the planning of the International Automobile City in the Shanghai suburb of Anting. Speer drew up the master plan for the new city, which would later include the Formula 1 racetrack, as well as offices, car manufacturing plants, Tongji University’s new engineering faculty and the ‘German new town’. The ongoing project – which focuses strongly on Germany’s construction strengths in energy efficiency, insulation and environmentally sustainable technology – cemented AS&P’s reputation in China, and wiped the smiles from his young employees’ faces.

Ten-Year Anniversary in China

Unlike less durable foreign planners that followed in Speer’s footsteps – many of which offered their services for free, had their ideas and models either diluted or copied and retreated promptly for home – AS&P is celebrating a decade in China. During this time, it has concentrated its efforts on Grade A urban planning projects in prominent Chinese cities, such as Shanghai, Beijing, Nanjing and Chongqing.

To celebrate the anniversary, in April 2007, AS&P’s Yan’an Road operation converted to a wholly-foreign owned Chinese company, a milestone that fills Speer with pride. “We had some hard times in the beginning, and I never thought we would ever be working in China when I founded the company,” he says matter-of-factly, before his signature smile reappears. “But April  saw the first board meeting of the new company in China. I never expected to have that.”

Company structural evolution aside, AS&P’s latest urban project, which has brought Speer to China for an eleven-day trip – “I only come here around three times a year now. I have good people who manage the day-to-day details. I don’t want to be involved with things like salary details” – is in Changchun, an automobile manufacturing city in the northeastern rustbelt nicknamed “China’s Detroit”. AS&P was awarded first prize in a competition to develop a 35,000 sq. m governmental building complex, the first phase of a mammoth 120 sq. km city extension project. “That’s half the size of Frankfurt,” Speer says.

He should know. During the last twenty years, AS&P has provided broad-ranging city planning advice to Europe’s financial capital, ranging from a high-rise development master plan to museum creation to a traffic management plan for last summer’s World Cup football matches. Assisting the physical development of Frankfurt over such a prolonged period is, Speer says, one of two projects that have given him the most professional satisfaction. The other was creating the new diplomatic quarter in the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh. “This is a good example of how, by using modern technology, a key city district can be built with an Arabic flavour and low energy usage, good water efficiency and effective landscaping in a difficult climate,” he says.

Internationally respected within his industry, Speer is frequently confronted by the journalism profession’s preference to discuss a family legacy. The notoriety of the role played by his father, Albert Speer Senior, as “the first architect of the Third Reich” is something that his son has grown weary of discussing, not least because – even 60 years later – it frequently overshadows his own achievements around the world. Though he followed his father, and grandfather, into the architectural profession, the similarities end there. Speer the younger is staunchly apolitical, and his international success speaks for itself. “As an architect, I am future-oriented and must always look forward, not back,” he says.

Chinese Satellite Cities

Founded in 1964, AS&P has developed architectural and urban planning strategies from Europe to Latin America to Asia, taking Speer on myriad plane journeys from the Frankfurt airport he helped to remodel bound for, among others, China, Belize, Saudi Arabia, Panama, Oman, Luxembourg, Yemen, the Netherlands, Croatia, Nigeria and Turkey. As he takes a less hands-on role in the company, his globetrotting days are, he says, largely behind him, though he continues to relish his China trips. One of his lead partners is currently re-landscaping the Caspian Sea coastline of the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, remodeling it with parks, office buildings and leisure facilities. “That’s an interesting project,” Speer says, “but I am pulling back a little now. I’ve not even been to Baku.”

From Chongqing to Anting, Chanchun to Linggang, much of Speer’s work in China has centred on satellite or extension projects to existing city environments. Is this perhaps a key specialism that has underpinned his success in the Middle Kingdom? “No,” he says firmly, referencing the developmental difference between Chinese and European cities. “The European city is built and doesn’t need any new areas because populations will decrease in future,” he explains. “In China, we are at the beginning of city development, people are increasingly moving to cities, so it is natural that we are asked to create city extensions.”

The only inner-city project he has worked on in China was a developmental plan for the perennially clogged north-south traffic axis in Beijing, with a brief to address traffic planning beyond the 2008 Olympics. Given the increasingly suffocating effects of traffic congestion in China, and Speer’s experience of assisting Frankfurt to unplug its World Cup traffic bottlenecks, you’d think he would be a shoe-in for this aspect of city planning. Not so. “We haven’t been asked to do any more of these projects yet,” he says. “But, of course, we would be interested.”
One reason could be down to timing and coordination. Sophisticated traffic planning solutions, such as London’s controversial Congestion Charge, which levies a fixed fee on vehicles every time they enter a delineated downtown area are, Speer says, not yet applicable in China. “It’s not feasible here now, but in future it will be,” he says. “Traffic is not yet organised in Chinese cities. It’s chaos. A congestion charge is the last step, before that you need to have a functioning public transport system and better management of the traffic networks.”

Alongside traffic concerns, China’s key urban development issue is energy and environmental sustainability. Speer sees no overnight solution. “In future, the environmental problems will be more of a focus. We certainly have to rethink public transport and many other things, but the basic problems are not changing,” Speers says.  “The developmental problems of Asian and European cities are the same, what differs is the cultural approaches to dealing with them.” The scale of urban concerns is also diversified within Asia. “Look at Hong Kong and Shanghai,” Speers says. “The buildings are the same, but the landscapes and urban environment are different. My aim is to bring these issues to politicians’ notice, so we can address the options together.”

Redefining Shanghai and Beijing

Which brings our discussion to infrastructure development. Though our high-rise view has now been fully devoured by a thick fuggy haze, the echo of jackhammers and drills still reverberates around Shanghai. These signature sounds underpin a key investment priority of the authorities in both Shanghai and Beijing, as China’s foremost cities prepare to take their respective places on the international stage: Beijing during the 2008 Olympics and Shanghai for the six-month-long 2010 World Expo. “I’m fond of big events like these,” says Speer. “Cities worldwide, and the politicians that run them, are always slow at decision-making, so the forced dateline for big sporting occasions pushes the finalisation of new projects, particularly for city redevelopment.”
His home nation, Germany, hosted last year’s World Cup Finals, and the benefits, Speers says, were tangible. “All 12 host cities improved their infrastructure, hotels and transport systems for the event, it’s not just about stadiums,” Speer says. The effect on Shanghai will be similar, he adds. “People have learned, especially since the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, that these events work as city development projects. In Shanghai, we are using it to give back a large part of the river area to the city.”

Though not currently involved in the Expo development program, AS&P did assist with the original master planning, and local officials have eagerly foraged through its back catalogue. “We’ve been a good source of know-how transfer, as we worked on the 2000 Hanover Expo,” Speer says with a laugh.

Likewise, Beijing’s 2008 Olympic urban makeover – while not directly touched by Speer’s planning pencil, does have a closely associated subscript. AS&P worked together with Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron – the Swiss architects of Beijing’s spectacular “Bird’s Nest” Olympic Stadium – to build Munich’s Allianz Arena. The 66,000-seat stadium, which hosted the 2006 World Cup opening ceremony, is the shared home of the 1860 and Bayern Munich football teams and its distinctive appearance earned it the nickname Schlauchboot (inflatable raft). “We prepared the competition entry for [Herzog & de Meuron], from which they were chosen to build the stadium. We also suggested the site and worked on the financing for the connecting traffic autobahn,” Speer says.

Given their previous collaboration, what does Speer think of Herzog & de Meuron’s dramatic Beijing Olympic Stadium? “I was last there in May [2006], and it wasn’t finished but it I was very impressed. It is a marvelous architectural product of the highest quality,” he says matter-of-factly. “But it costs a lot of money and is not sustainable because the design uses steel to a huge extent.” The qualification made, Speer smiles and relaxes his posture, his shoulders drawing back noticeably. “You know, though,” he says, his eyes bright and piercing. “It will certainly be a symbol for the Olympic Games and a symbol for modern China.”

Last update : Thursday, 24 January 2008

Keywords : Albert Speer, Dongtan, Eco-City, Chongming, Shanghai

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