Pudong's great joint adventure

ONLY a city with such a hodgepodge of architectural styles - French, English, German and Soviet, as well as Chinese - could even dream of getting away with such a plan.

As they begin construction work on the financial centre of the new Pudong development zone, across the Huangpu River from the Bund's magnificent building commemorating the British Empire, urban planners are now considering five architectural designs fromfive different countries - Japan, Britain, France, Italy, plus a home-grown Shanghai blueprint.

Rather than choosing just one of them, planners intend to take the best aspects of each design and build them into a city which will, hopefully, be one of the world's most modern, efficient, user-friendly, and beautiful.

To many, this eclecticism might sound like a recipe for disaster. How can such radically different schemes be combined into one while maintaining a unique identity? That is what 32 experts - half from China, half from overseas - will be trying to work out over the coming months. It is an awesome task, considering the approximately US$10 billion (HK$78 billion) involved in construction, and the demands of the client;Shanghai has made no bones about its desire to rise from four decades of socialist neglect to become an international city on a par with the likes of New York, London, and Hongkong.

Yet, in making the melange, the experts need not look very far for inspiration. The potpourri approach has worked before right here in Shanghai where the erstwhile masters, both Chinese and foreign, created over the decades a metropolis once justifiably known as the Pearl of the Orient, and which, with a facelift, might well become once again one of the most dynamic and beautiful cities in Asia.

''We think it will be better than cities designed in the 20th century,'' said Wang Ande, General Manager of the Shanghai Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone Development Co, which is heading the design work for the new financial centre, called Lujiazui.