But Chongqing Meiquan, the developer behind the building, claims innocence, insisting at a press conference that the project was inspired not by Hadid's curves but "by the cobblestones on the bank of the Yangtze river by which Chongqing was built".
BARRICADES, several deep across the cobblestones, block the entrance to Paris's Sorbonne University.
Nothing perks up a regeneration project like a waterfront view and, conversely, few things are as redolent of urban blight as a rubbish-strewn canal or a run-down docks.Waterside developments are often most successful where the area has fine old warehouses, or distinctive pieces of industrial archaeology, such as wharves, railway tracks or cobblestones.
Real lakes are made by nature" or "High heel rule: You must be able to run in them on cobblestones, on a dock in case of a spontaneous footrace".
Such humdrum details of everyday small-town France have been captured in 36 giant colour photographs by Raymond Depardon, a French film-maker and photographer, currently on display in a gem of an exhibition at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, part of the Paris photo season.Not for Mr Depardon the dreamy France of cobblestones and cathedrals.
Neither Slovakia nor Serbia seemed likely to join the European Union or NATO any time soon.Since then, Slovakia has become a showpiece of post-communist change, with a shiny new bridge to complement the old townscape of spires and cobblestones in its now buzzing capital, Bratislava.
At least two people were killed and dozens injured as priests and Ukrainian nationalists battled with riot police; the cleric, who had spent 20 years in the gulag, was hastily interred under some cobblestones.
TO THE west of the tree-lined avenues and cobblestones of Paris, the steel skeleton of a new skyscraper rises into the air.
Tanks, rocket launchers and ballistic-missile carriers scratched the cobblestones; bombers, jets and helicopters flew above St Basil's Cathedral.
People of African descent, slave and free, gathered at Congo Square to sing, dance, drum, sell and trade; it was then an open field, not paved with cobblestones as it is today, and outside the formal city of New Orleans.
A cheap, odd-looking car that takes cobblestones and potholes in its stride: what could be more French than that?
