A decade-long controversy! Wang Jianlin’s 150 million yuan worth of flowers made in Chengdu—each piece of glass earns him 625,000 yuan.

At 7 a.m. at the Qingcheng Bridge, giant flower petals made of 8,000 pieces of colored-glazed glass are refracting the morning glow into flowing patches of light, beautifully complementing the millennia-old morning rays reflecting off the Dujiangyan Irrigation System in the distance. This "Hibiscus Flower," built by Wang Jianlin at a cost of 150 million yuan, has for years remained the most controversial and iconic landmark on Chengdu’s cultural and tourism map. The interplay of light and shadow here eerily echoes the sharp criticism that surfaced online a decade ago: “Spending 150 million yuan to build a flower is better spent on building a school.” Over the past ten years, the Chengdu Hibiscus Flower—Wanda City, created by Wang Jianlin at a cost of 150 million yuan—has undergone a remarkable transformation, rising from being labeled an “expensive flop” to becoming a “money-printing machine.” As the yardstick for evaluation shifts from construction costs to cultural value, behind the “profit myth” of each piece of glass costing 625,000 yuan lies the commercial real estate giant’s precise and strategic bet on shaping the city’s iconic landmarks.

 

 

Investment Decoding: The Business Calculations Behind the 150 Million Yuan Investment

 

Rising amid the mountain hollows of Yutang Town in Dujiangyan, this metallic flower carries strategic significance far exceeding that of the building itself. While its construction cost of 150 million may seem staggering when considered in isolation, it represents just 0.27% of the project’s total investment of 55 billion—a figure comparable to spending two thousand yuan on design fees for a property worth tens of millions. This “achieving great results with minimal investment” approach has already been demonstrated in Wanda’s cultural and tourism projects—for instance, Harbin Wanda City once spent 150 million yuan to build the “world’s largest curling exhibition center,” creating a symbolic marketing synergy with Chengdu’s “Hibiscus Flower” that echoes the north-south theme.

 

Wanda’s brilliance lies in its ability to transform cultural symbols into traffic drivers. This exhibition center, spanning 10,000 square meters, welcomed over 300,000 visitors in its first month of operation. The immersive experiences it offers—such as a life-size ski simulator and a 7D cinema—are, in fact, miniature previews of the core business formats that make up the entire Wanda City complex. Data shows that this “experiential marketing” approach has boosted the conversion rate of potential customers by 37% compared to traditional advertising methods. The intuitive feedback from local taxi drivers underscores its success: “If you just say ‘Let’s go to Wanda City,’ nobody’ll know what you’re talking about. But if you mention ‘going to see that big hibiscus flower,’ everyone knows exactly how to get there.”

 

 

From the perspective of construction efficiency, this “Hibiscus Flower” serves as a textbook case in commercial real estate development. After design work commenced in September 2015, the project was completed and opened to the public in less than half a year. Thanks to the millimeter-level precision achieved under BIM system management, the 8,000 uniquely shaped glass panels were assembled with zero errors. Behind this “Wanda Speed” lies the company’s keen grasp of Chengdu’s opportunity to become a world-class tourism destination—when the city needed a cultural landmark, Wanda promptly provided a visually distinctive and recognizable symbol.

 

 

Symbolic Economics: From Architectural Marvels to Urban IPs

 

The design code behind this metallic hibiscus flower holds the delicate balance between commerce and culture. The design team abandoned the costly curved-curtain-wall solution and innovatively adopted a “three-segment arc-jointing method,” breaking down each petal into three standard arc-shaped surfaces and using digitally printed colored-glazed glass to create visually seamless curves. Each piece of glass is equipped with an independent coding system, enabling precise installation akin to a three-dimensional puzzle while ensuring long-lasting color retention even in the rainy climate of western Sichuan.

 

The cultural expression within the building showcases even greater craftsmanship: a 5.1-meter-high dot-matrix art glass mural recreates the scene of "Paying Respects to Dujiangyan for Water, Seeking Taoism on Qingcheng Mountain." Ink-wash fabric curtains interweave with elements of Bashu bamboo blinds, seamlessly integrating the ambiance of Sichuanese rural dwellings into a contemporary space. As night falls, full-color digital lighting follows the veins of the petals, making the entire flower appear as if it’s blooming in water—a subtle dialogue between reality and illusion that echoes the silhouette of Qingcheng Mountain. This design elevates the building from a mere architectural structure to a true cultural vessel. Since its opening, it has become the backdrop for over 2,000 wedding photography sessions, and retired seniors have taken to the surrounding green spaces as their morning exercise grounds, marking a transformation from a commercial symbol into an integral part of daily life.

 

 

Compared to the “Hibiscus Flower” design of the Meixi Lake Art Museum in Changsha, the Chengdu project’s commercial attributes are even more pronounced. Zaha ・ The architectural complex in Changsha, designed by Hadid, adopts an abstract concept inspired by petal ripples, whereas Chengdu’s “Hibiscus Flower” project opts for a more straightforward, figurative expression. This difference stems from their distinct functional orientations: the former, as an artistic sanctuary, seeks to embody timeless values, while the latter, as a commercial exhibition center, needs to convey cultural messages swiftly. Together, these two approaches illuminate the multifaceted potential of the hibiscus flower as a cultural symbol.

 

 

Ten Years of Operation: From Celebrity Traffic Drivers to Economic Engines

 

After nearly a decade of operation, Chengdu Wanda City—home to the “Hibiscus Flower” project—has become deeply integrated into the regional economic ecosystem. Although the latest operational data for 2025 have not yet been released, based on the project’s planned targets, once fully operational, it is expected to create 15,000 jobs, boost the permanent population of Dujiangyan by more than 100,000 people, and attract an annual tourist influx of 50 million visitors. Compared to Chengdu’s total tourist volume of 19.956 million during the 2025 Spring Festival, this scale suggests that Wanda City will play a crucial role as a major traffic-generating hub for cultural and tourism activities in western Chengdu.

 

From the perspective of business format layout, “Furong Flower” is just the tip of the iceberg. The entire Wanda City encompasses a 300,000-square-meter Wanda Mall (including a 100,000-square-meter indoor four-season ski resort), a 60-hectare theme park, a cluster of hotels, and other diverse business formats. According to the latest recruitment information for 2025, emerging business formats such as the Shudu Wanda VR Park continue to expand steadily, with strong demand for sales staff positions, underscoring the project’s sustained vitality. Particularly noteworthy is that the theme park’s areas—such as “Tianfu Paradise” and “Bashu Fortress”—echo the cultural symbolism of “Furong Flower,” thereby creating a complete consumer chain centered on “experiencing Bashu culture.”

 

 

For Dujiangyan, this metallic flower has brought more than just an increase in tourist numbers. Before the project was completed, the local tourism industry had long been plagued by a structural flaw—“visiting temples during the day and going to bed at night.” With the addition of all-day, multi-faceted attractions provided by Wanda City, the average length of tourists’ stay has increased from 1.2 days to 2.7 days. According to estimates by Dujiangyan’s cultural and tourism authorities, Wanda City has driven an average annual growth of 19% in regional tourism revenue, directly propelling the local area’s shift from sightseeing-oriented tourism to experience-based tourism.

 

 

Controversial Insights: A Reassessment of the Value of Cultural Symbols

 

Despite its commercial success, the aesthetic controversy surrounding “Hibiscus Flower” has never subsided. Netizens have criticized it for having “too literal a design” and for merely “simply piling up cultural symbols,” echoing similar criticisms leveled at Wang Jianlin’s earlier investment in the Blue-and-White Porcelain Wanda Mall. Such commentary reflects the public’s complex expectations regarding cultural expression in commercial real estate—on the one hand, people hope to gain clear cultural insights, yet on the other, they resist overly explicit symbolic consumption.

 

 

Compared to the abstract sloped-roof design of the “Flower Residence” at the Chengdu World Horticultural Exposition during the same period, the figurative expression of the “Hibiscus Flower” is indeed more controversial. Yet the architect’s defense is equally worth noting: “As an ‘advertising billboard’ for a cultural and tourism project, it needs to achieve cultural identification within three seconds—this efficiency-first design logic is entirely justifiable.” Time seems to be softening the criticism: as local residents begin their morning exercises amidst the play of light and shadow on the flower petals, and as children use the glass curtain wall as a natural canvas, the building has transcended its initial controversy and become a vessel that carries collective memory.

 

 

During the 2025 Spring Festival, Chengdu’s citywide cultural and tourism revenue reached 17.21 billion yuan—a remarkable 12.1% increase year-on-year—which may offer a fresh perspective on this ongoing debate. Against the broader backdrop of cultural-tourism integration, the 150 million yuan investment in the “Hibiscus Flower” has been transformed into quantifiable cultural capital: it’s not only a marketing tool for Wanda Plaza but has also become a cultural hallmark of Dujiangyan—and indeed, of Chengdu as a whole. As one cultural scholar put it: “When evaluating such architectural projects, we shouldn’t focus solely on their artistic purity; rather, we should pay closer attention to whether they’ve truly become embedded in the city’s fabric and have evolved into a cultural code that resonates with residents.”

 

 

The morning sunlight filters through glass petals, casting ever-changing patterns of light on the ground—patterns that have remained unchanged for a decade. Perhaps the true value of this steel lotus flower lies not in the high cost of 150 million, but in the fact that it demonstrates the potential for the fusion of commercial capital and cultural symbolism: as architecture evolves from a mere exhibition center into a city’s iconic landmark, and as commercial investment transforms into cultural identity, this seemingly expensive “investment in façade” is steadily yielding unexpected returns over time.