Chapter 902 Empire State Building
As a new round of vigorous construction is underway across East Africa, the development pace of the newly planned city of Rhine has not fallen behind.
"The East African Empire People's Building, referred to as the Empire Building, covers an area of 130,000 square meters. It is designed with reference to the characteristics of parliamentary buildings in Germany, Austria and other countries, and draws on the strengths of many schools."
The Empire State Building, also known as the East African National Assembly Building, is one of the key projects of the city of Rhine. However, there is currently no parliament in East Africa. After all, there is no need for it in East Africa.
William II was so jealous of this that he cried. Of course, as the East African countries developed, parliament was obviously an indispensable key authority.
In fact, at the beginning, William II had a positive attitude towards parliament, but after he came to power, that is, after 1892, parliament became an institution that restricted power that he hated extremely.
This was clearly reflected in his correspondence with Ernst. In response, Ernst could only say that William II was a straightforward person who never spoke in vain, otherwise he would not always offend people in the international community.
But Ernst's attitude was much calmer. He believed that absolute monarchy was definitely not a long-term solution, so the construction of the East African Empire came about.
And because of this, the East African Empire Building, which is being planned and constructed in Rhine City, is one of the key landmark buildings in Rhine City, and its architectural features are highly similar to those in Germany and Austria.
However, in terms of specific details, it is more inclined to the style of the German Parliament Building, mainly embodying the solemn and dignified characteristics and reflecting the great power style of East Africa. In this regard, Ernst believes that the British Parliament is more prominent, but the British Parliament building is too solemn, which gives Ernst a gloomy feeling, which is very bad.
Of course, when it comes to architectural aesthetics, the Winter Palace of Tsarist Russia is indeed better, but it is too magnificent and Ernst did not like it.
Of course, the Winter Palace is not a parliament. As absolute monarchies, Tsarist Russia and East Africa currently have no parliaments.
Historically, the Tsar was forced to open Russia's first parliament, the Russian Duma, in 1906 under pressure.
In front of the Empire State Building is a wide lawn, which is a reflection of the German design, because the most eye-catching things in front of the Vienna Parliament are sculptures and fountains.
To sum up, the Empire State Building in East Africa can be seen as an upgraded version of the German National Assembly Building. After all, as a country with a large population and land area, East Africa's parliament construction is more grand than that of ordinary countries.
As early as the 1890 census, the population of East Africa had surpassed that of Germany, and in the future the population growth rate and size of East Africa will certainly be higher than that of Germany.
The administrative district of Rhine City was chosen to be located in the northeastern part of the city rather than in the city center. This was first considered from the perspective of environment and scenery. The northeastern part of the city is close to the Rensemfowa River, and the Rensemfowa River flows from north to south, so the administrative district must be located in the upper reaches of the river, which can ensure both abundant water resources and pure water quality.
Secondly, after the construction of the reservoir on the Rensemfuwa River in the future, a large artificial lake will inevitably be formed in the east, and future urban development will inevitably expand towards the lake area.
One of the important reasons why cities in later generations like to build artificial lakes is to alleviate the local urban heat island effect. Water has a large specific heat capacity. When the temperature is high, the lake water evaporates and absorbs heat, consuming part of the heat in the air and playing a role in regulating the climate.
Moreover, the common feature of most artificial lakes is the diversification of surrounding functions, including commerce, business, hotels, residence, administration, medical care, tourism, transportation... Many artificial lakes have these functions around them. It can be said that the green spaces around artificial lakes or lakes also integrate these different functions more smoothly.
There are so many advantages, so the location of the administrative district of Rhine City must naturally give priority to occupying the city’s best land resources.
"As a city, Rhine City has its own administrative system, but as the national administrative center, Rhine City has two administrative systems with different focuses. Therefore, in the future, the Rhine City government and agencies will focus on the southwest of the national administrative region."
Although the capital city has a special positioning, it cannot change the fact that the Berlin municipal government is not the central government of Germany. The same is true in East Africa. The primary purpose of the municipal government and its related urban governance agencies is to serve the city.
The national administrative center serves the entire country, so there is a big difference between the two. In this way, the Rhine City Government is closer to the city center, which is convenient for urban governance and services to surrounding citizens.
"In addition to administrative functions, the capital's functions also focus on science, education, culture, and health. At the same time, according to the Crown Prince's request, it also places more emphasis on transportation and economy than the first town."
Of course, there is another aspect that Ernst did not mention, and that is the tourism function of the capital. The capital of a country naturally has cultural and tourism attributes, but in the current era, the tourism industry is not taken seriously, so the city of Rhine must plan for this in advance.
However, this is more difficult for East Africa because it is a country without historical heritage.
For example, the capital of the Far Eastern Empire, even though it is not the national political center, the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven and other historical sites can still attract people to visit.
Even in Europe, London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin and other cities have their own characteristics. In contrast, Washington in the United States and Brasilia in Brazil were not very prominent in the past.
In this way, if the city of Rhine in East Africa wants to become a hot spot for tourism, it can only do so through "spectacles" and the like in the future.
Brasilia is a typical example of this. The airplane silhouette of the city of Brasilia is well-known in the world, but this silhouette can only be seen from a high altitude. Even if you go to Brasilia, it is difficult to see it intuitively. Moreover, although the city design of Brasilia is unique, it also has many obvious shortcomings, especially the unreasonable forced functional zoning, which leads to inconvenience in life.
As for Washington, to be honest, the fact that it is a little bit popular is entirely due to the powerful national strength of the United States in its previous life. If the United States was an unknown Caribbean island country like Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, who would care where Washington is!
This is the case with the United States and Brazil, not to mention East Africa, a country with only 30 years of history. Of course, the history of African indigenous civilization is not short, but the American Indian civilization is relatively backward, and African indigenous civilization is even more backward. American countries can still play the Indian civilization card, but East Africa cannot even play the black card.
It is impossible to compare mud and branch houses, which are not even shacks, with the Indian "pyramids". As for the Arab buildings and ruins left in East Africa, a considerable part of them have been destroyed in East Africa, with only the island of Zanzibar still having some remains.
In addition, the oldest buildings in East Africa were left by the Portuguese. There is no need to demolish them as they are spoils of war in East Africa.
Therefore, one of the importance of the Imperial People's Building is that it can add a wonder to the city of Rhineland. The word "Empire" represents the attributes of the East African monarchy, and the word "People" was added by Ernst.
It represents East Africa's ambition and the country's future direction of democratization. Now East Africa is still a kingdom. Ernst is definitely not satisfied with this level. Moreover, according to East Africa's current national strength, the basic conditions for upgrading the kingdom to an empire have been met. Only an empire is in line with East Africa's status as a great power.
Otherwise, the so-called "emperorship" of the Japanese and Vietnamese royal families would have the meaning of "putting on a crown and pretending to be a monkey". Ernst only thought of "becoming an emperor" after he had completely turned East Africa into a world power. Countries like Japan and Vietnam, which are not even regional powers, seem a bit ridiculous.
Of course, Japan has barely squeezed into the ranks of regional powers through its victory in the Far East War, but in Ernst's view, this has also lowered the value of the word "Emperor".
(End of this chapter)
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