When I moved to Beijing in 2006, one of my best expatriate friends, an Irish attorney who came here in the late 1990s, informed me that once upon a time, the city had just one tall tower, the Capital Mansion north of Sanlitun. Now there are over 300 skyscrapers in the Central Business District alone. Beijing, it is often said, currently resembles a circus tent, with highrises ringing the dwindling number of low-slung courtyard houses in its inner core.

Many of my expatriate friends deeply loathe Beijing's modern makeover. For example, my Irish friend, who moved to Madrid a year ago, once called the capital the ugliest big city in the world, adding that it had just two attractive buildings, the Forbidden City and The Temple of Heaven.

Lots of Beijing's new buildings are indeed at best undistinguished and at worst downright awful. The former includes the new CNPC head office in Dongzhimen. Its beautiful white marble exterior is more than offset by a chunky design that makes it resemble several two-drawer filing cabinets joined together. And the glass and steel building, with three humps near the Xizhimen subway station, is easily the biggest eyesore in the capital.