People travel far and wide to view one of nature’s most spectacular sights, the waterfall. Somebody at Chinese construction company Guizhou Ludiya Property Management recognized this and thought, “Hey, why don’t we build a waterfall on the side of our skyscraper?” And so they created the world’s tallest man-made waterfall, and people can’t quite decide if it’s a good idea or not. There’s no denying that it does indeed look spectacular, creating a glorious rainbow in front of the building when the sun is out. But the artificial waterfall, located in the city of Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou province in Southwest China, requires 4 large pumps to lift the recycled water 350ft up before it cascades down the side of the huge building. It faced huge engineering challenges during constuction and because of electricity costs, believed to be over $100 an hour, the waterfall is only in use for special occasions.
A&D spoke to one resident of Guiyang, Tengyu Zhang, to get his take on the unusual new attraction in his city. “Personally I think it’s nice,” he told us. “I think it’s more for showing the tourism of Guizhou province. Since Huangguoshu waterfall is the most famous waterfall in China and it’s located in Guizhou, this one can be like a small ad for that.” Many people have reacted negatively to what they perceive as an extremely wasteful vanity project, but Tengyu doesn’t agree. “Well, it’s not always on. Only if there are some international and important events and then it will be open. Moreover, there are fountains in the park, and light decorations in the modern city. If you really consider the aspect of environment, I guess all those should be closed as well.”
Guiyang is experiencing rapid growth as people flock from the other parts of the province to take advantage of the building boom. “Five years ago it was still one of the poorest provinces in China,” Tengyu told us. “But now the government wants to build a big data center in Guiyang. So the economy is developing rapidly. For example the bases for Apple, Google, and Amazon will be located in Guiyang.” Seems like there’ll be plenty more creative and crazy skyscrapers to come in Guiyang! Scroll down to check out the waterfall building for yourself.
A construction company in Guiyang, China decided to try something a little different
But while there’s no denying that it does look spectacular