© Fritz Hoffman/National Geographic.

National Geographic is one of the few pub­li­ca­tions on earth that pho­tog­ra­phers & writ­ers can drink and cheer about in the same room with­out get­ting into a fight.

Photographed by Fritz Hoffman, with words by Brook Lamer, the magazine’s March issue of ‘Shanghai Dream’ caught my atten­tion for its bold and unusual full double-spread fea­ture photo; closeup shot of the cities’ three iconic archi­tec­ture: The IFC Tower, Jin Mao Building and The Oriental Pearl TV Tower.

The three con­struc­tion won­ders were top­ics of brain­storm, polit­i­cal debate and social gath­er­ings even before the first brick was planted, my alma-mater, China’s Top Architecture School, Shanghai Tongji University were involved in the design, engi­neer­ing even the con­struc­tion of all three tow­ers; I was a stu­dent when The Oriental TV Tower started con­struc­tion, fin­ished when I took a leave from school.

Nearly 10 years since I left Shanghai, it’s nice to see the three finally can stood together in one page from such an extra­or­di­nary point of view; and for the next cou­ple of months dur­ing the World Expo 2010 — you can finally enjoy a clean, frozen state of construction-less Shanghai, a per­fect time to visit this flam­boy­ant city of con­stant changes.