You'll have come a long way baby

Beijing's Urbane magazine recently profiled the Australian architect John Pauline of PTW, the Sydney-based firm that designed the Olympic swimming venue usually called the Water Cube. The article included drawings of another PTW design, reproduced here: the new Friendship Store.

The Beijing Friendship store opened in 1964 to sell imported and luxury products to the capital's small but growing group of resident foreigners, and moved to its current location at Jianguomenwai in 1973, the year after the next-door Jianguomenwai Diplomatic Compound was built. The area is Beijing's first Embassy District; aside from the embassy buildings, there is also the Qijiayuan Diplomatic Compound, the first buildings of which were completed in 1957.

Still standing: the Friendship Store today

In December last year, the Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage declared that 71 'recent era' or 20th Century buildings would be protected as heritage buildings, including the Great Hall of the People, the Beijing Department Store, and the 798 Factory. The Jianguomenwai and Qijiayuan diplomatic compounds on either side of the Friendship Store are included, but not the grand old lady of laowai shopping.

There has been talk about the imminent destruction of the Friendship Store for at least a decade. In May 2005, Danwei reported information from a source who claimed to have seen an agreement for the Friendship Store to be turned into a luxury Conrad hotel and mall.

In August 2006, writing in The Washington Post, Maureen Fan reported:

A $500 million "Friendship Mansion," 15 times the size of the original, will take its place by early 2009. A joint venture led by Stanley Ho, the Macau casino tycoon, plans to erect a 29-story apartment complex and two office towers atop an eight-story retail podium. Parts of the project may open in time to greet visitors for the 2008 Olympic Games.

Well the last sentence has not proved to be true, but it looks likely that the wrecking balls might arrive shortly after August this year.

Note: The tall brown building behind the Friendship Store and still standing in the artist rendering above is the CITIC building (国际大厦), which used to be affectionately called the 'Chocolate Building (巧克力大厦) because it resembles a chocolate bar. 29 storeys or 101 meters tall, it was Beijing first skyscraper when completed in 1985.

Update: Alex Pasternak, one of the co-authors of the Urbane magazine report mentioned above, also wrote this blog post in 2006 about Da Shan, Stanley Ho and the Friendship Store Who needs friends when you have money?