The Ordos 100 program should draw public attention to Ordos, China's new cultural center, the second largest city in Inner Mongolia province, located in the center of the desert plateau of the same name.
In the fall of 2007, the Museum of Fine Arts opened there, where collectors and art critics from all over the world come to see exhibitions of works of the best Chinese artists of the last 50 years. A new concert hall is also under construction in Ordos.
Ordos 100 will be the third large-scale cultural and architectural enterprise. Its meaning is to create in the city a new elite residential area with an area of almost 200 hectares - a kind of architectural exhibition reminiscent of the "Great Wall Commune", only of a much larger size. To build there one hundred villas of 1000 sq. m each, Jacques Herzog invited 100 young architects from 27 countries to Ordos. The list includes the Japanese bureau Atelier Bow-Wow, the Dutch NL Architects, the Bjarke Ingels workshop BIG, the Mexican architect Michel Rohkind. All participants were divided into two groups, and the first shift has already started working at the facility, and the second will go to Ordos in May 2008. Each participant was given 100 days to design a house. The construction of houses should be completed by the end of this year.
