great firewall lifted for the new university of macau campus

great firewall lifted for the new university of macau campus
all images courtesy of university of macau

set to open this september, the new campus of the university of macau will be exempt from the restrictions of the golden shield project, colloquially known as the great firewall of china. initiated in 1998, the notoriously oppressive surveillance and censorship project uses ‘protective’ software to regulate and prevent unauthorized or unwanted communications between computer networks or hosts– all on an absolutely massive, nation-wide scale. the project’s unabashedly orwellian dimensions have long been the subject of global discourse on the political and social power of the internet as well as the role of government in the shaping of media communication. sites prime for the rapid and conversational exchange of (potentially subversive) ideas like facebook, youtube and twitter are famously banned and the practice of mass website shutdowns still prevails. a 2011 report by the chinese academy of social sciences cited that there were 41% fewer websites than the previous year with a a total site shutdown by the government totaling approximately 1.3 million. while mainland china has allowed ad-hoc exemptions from great firewall restrictions during the 2008 beijing olympics and 2010 shanghai world expo, the unprecedented opening of the web for the university campus might precipitate a necessary and irreversible trend; many regional experts, however, claim that the access is in fact a marketing strategy to attract top-tier students with the promise of free access to academic papers, studies and resources.

the open campus will be free of the famous great firewall of china

view of the school of business

a massive student center in progress

complicated by macau’s SAR status ( a result of recently shed colonial control) the university made headlines when the new site of the campus was announced. the 106-square-kilometre site in hengqin has initially with only a few thousand residents, who made a living by raising oysters. in 2009, it gained the special economic zone status and the government has since spent 45 billion yuan (hk$57 billion) on infrastructure projects. it has also completed the 6 billion yuan university of macau campus, which could house 10,000 students. it has 56 ongoing projects in the tourism, chinese medicine, health-care, culture and technology industries involving a total investment of 226.3 billion yuan. hengqin island possesses a unique geographic advantage for the information technology industry. complicated questions and controversy due to the differing legal and political systems between china and macau — under the ‘one country, two systems’ arrangement.”

graduate housing will accomodate 10,000

faculty housing

view of the library

interior view of the library

the school of education building contains southern-european style water features

interiors will be clad in portuguese tile

climbing wall of the on-campus sports facilities

interior view of the sports facilities

the great firewall lift has great implications given the open nature of the campus–the campus will be under macao law and open to everyone in the SAR, without the need to go through border control. it will be separated from the rest of zhuhai by a tunnel waterway. the university has entrusted to one of china’s most famous architects, he jingtang, who designed the chinese pavilion at the shanghai expo and is vice-chairman of the architectural society of china. it will be designed primarily for students and for walking and the bicycle, not the motor vehicles; the longest walking time for a student from his college to a lecture, the library or other facilities will be 15 minutes. the campus, however, will be connected to the mainland with an underwater tunnel.

‘the new campus will be people-oriented, sustainable, modern and it-based, its environment will be a blend of chinese and western cultural elements, a combination of mountain and sea views and of the cultural characteristics of southern china and the architecture style of southern europe.’

the gallery will be affiliated with the design school