Is bigger really better?

Europe’s tallest building took centre stage this week, as Greenpeace activists climbed London’s Shard in a protest against drilling in the Arctic.

And there’s another impressive construction causing a stir as the largest building in the world has opened in China.

Love it or hate it, the New Century Global Centre in Chengdu is an extraordinary place. At 500m long, 400m wide and 100m tall, it would fit 20 Sydney Opera Houses. And it’s got every amenity you could think of. Cinemas, shops, an ice rink, two enormous five star hotels, loads of offices and perhaps most strikingly, a beach. In a place over 600 miles from the sea, they’ve brought the coast indoors. There’s an artificial sun, blue skies and a sea breeze.

So the question is, and I have no doubt this will split the room, is it a good thing or a bad thing?

The initial, perhaps kneejerk response may be to dismiss this as an immoral demonstration of what money can do. Consumerism on a crass scale. A celebration of excess. An example of human estrangement from the natural world. Having polluted the sea we were given, we’ve turned to manufacturing our own.

And comparisons have been made with ‘The Truman Show’, where Jim Carrey’s character spends a lifetime on a huge town-sized TV set, the unwitting star of his own reality show. Just as Truman Burbank never needed to leave the set, visitors to this building may also never need the exit.

It’s gaudy, fake and immoral. And I like it.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to go there. I’d rather spend my hard-earned on seeing the world for real, rather than a constructed version of it.

But it’s spectacular and intimidating, in a good way. I like the idea that we’re still building symbols of human capability. Erecting such an impressive building, at least in its size, is clearly a feat. Look upon it perhaps, as a modern day pyramid. I’m sure when they were built, the locals were saying “that’s a bit much”.

There’s a reason that people will visit. For an experience, and to say they were there. So in a time of constraint and limitation, we should celebrate that some people are willing to think big.