The luxurious “mountain villa” built atop a Beijing high-rise is being torn down. The $US4 million penthouse was built by a Chinese health care entrepreneur named Zhang Lin on the roof of an existing apartment building earlier this year, much to the chagrin of its party-pooper occupants.
To build his totally unregulated shangri-la, Lin’s construction team had installed extra steel beams along the facade of the existing building — theoretically offsetting the extra weight. But tenants below complained of burst pipes and cracked walls, and back in August, officials demanded that Lin demolish the structure. “Now I realise it was a huge mistake,” a forlorn Lin told the New York Times.
A mistake, maybe, but a glorious one. [The People’s Daily via Curbed]
Pictures: The People’s Daily