China, a country that is home to ten replica White Houses (including one that functions as a prison), issued a directive back in February demanding that its architects stop designing "oversized, xenocentric, weird" buildings and start designing buildings that are ""suitable, economic, green and pleasing to the eye." So, how’s that going? Well, if the newly constructed North China University of Water Conservancy and Electric Power headquarters, which is shaped like a toilet, has anything to say about it: not all that well.
There is an argument to be made that the building does not intentionally look like a toilet, but considering the recent history of Chinese buildings being designed to look like other things and the building’s purpose, that does not seem all that likely. It is at least somewhat less blatant that other Chinese buildings in the past, however, which have been shaped like objects such as a liquor bottle, a cell phone, a gold coin, a teapot, and more.
• Chinese government's 'weird architecture' ban in ruins as 'giant toilet' skyscraper is built [Independent]
• China Demands That All New Buildings Be Attractive, Not Weird [Curbed]
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