Get your nostalgic stories about Beijng ready for your grandchildren now. After all, at the rate the place is transforming, you may have trouble remembering what it looked like a year ago, let alone ten or twenty. And you can lament the endangered old hutongs all you want; precious few expats are living in them, much less shuffling out to a communal bathroom on a frosty February evening.

　　Coming to terms with the Century of China means making peace with a few certain truths, one among them being that its capital city will be recreated in a mold that represents the growing affluence and dreams of its people. Mega-plazas and super-centers are the temples of the new global consumer culture. Hence the status in building the biggest, best temple in Beijing.

　　Beijing Yintai Property Co., Ltd. believes its soon-to-open Yintai Centre will be the crown jewel in a city already sparkling with gems such as China World Trade Centre, Oriental Plaza and the Kerry Centre. The central tower of Yintai Centre rises as high as 249.9 m, which is majestically crowned by a large cube with a built-in glass pyramid that resembles a Chinese lantern. The central tower consists of Park Hyatt Hotel, luxurious service apartments. On both sides of it stand two buildings of 186 m, which are PICC Office Tower and Yintai Office Tower respectively. The podium, which connects the three towers, will feature Park Life, a new concept shopping center with top European luxury boutiques, an international gourmet supermarket, conference and banquet facilities, a modern fitness centre and coffee shop and outdoor landscaped roof garden. The secret of its rarity may lie in the very way the centre’s three towers are arranged, into a monolithic Chinese character- pin (品); good taste if you will. Walk onto the show floors and see for yourself. Heralding the triumph of realism over ostentation in architecture & design, Yintai is a miracle of natural materials, exquisite fabrics, and space artfully employed to uplift and soothe.

　　Lily Lui, Leasing Director for Yintai, understands this shifting trend in world class centers. “Living environment and quality are the primary focus of Yintai,” she says. “We want everything here to assure people they are in the optimal community, the optimal living environment as well as the working environment and conditions”

　　Theory in practice: the apex of Yintai’s central tower, a three-story Chinese lantern that will cast its glow far over Beijing’s night, will house the reception of the five-star Hyatt Hotel and serviced apartments. Every visitor gets a trip to the top, to take advantage of the spectacular view. And the trip will pose no inconvenience, granted the rocket fast, silky smooth double-decker elevators, which ensure you never have to wait in line for a ride.

　　Park space, shopping, and recreation have all been conceived and executed in a celebration of pin, drawing retail royalty such as George Amani, Hermes and Chanel. Insurance giant PICC was suitably impressed to buy an entire tower for its headquarters use. Yintai Office Tower is just for leasing (no strata title in office building) and it assures the tenants in the building will be multinational companies and those companies of Fortune 500 in the world. Oh yeah, sorry wai guo peng you. Only one for you for purchasing the apartment, according to the new regulations by the government in Beijing.

　　Yintai Center begins unveiling next summer: offices on 1st June, Park Hyatt Hotel in July, and opening ceremony for the whole project will be in October, 2007. But Beijing Yintai Property Company looks further ahead, to a post-Olympic city transmogrified. More and more of New China’s heirs live, work and play in mega-plazas and super-centers, while the global village rages outside their walls. Yet all who see the lantern’s glow recognize Yintai for what it is, multi-use legend John Portman’s masterpiece, and the pinnacle of pin.