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Giant panda scales Chengdu mall

By Gan Tian ( China Daily ) Updated: 2014-03-17 07:24:04

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Visitors can get a close look at the giant panda on the top floor of Chengdu International Finance Square.

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"With this directive of the panda, I started to think of the panda I had to make and I started to think of the building - how does somebody experience it? This is a 750,000-square-meter place," he says.

The artist says the panda has to interact with the building, so that the architecture, the sculpture and people become one.

"The project is not about that panda being in the building or an object outside the building. It's about something that is integrated," Argent says, standing on the seventh floor of IFS. The giant panda's nose is just a few meters away.

Shopper Jiang Shuchen's experience proves Argent's theory. Jiang was taking her child for a stroll nearby, and when the child saw the giant panda, he became excited, asking his mother to take him in to look at the panda's face on the seventh floor.

Bringing the child inside, Jiang couldn't help but spend as much as 7,000 yuan ($1,140), as the journey upstairs takes them through several luxury boutiques.

"The art piece is interesting in a way. And it attracts people to come in and spend money," Jiang says with a grin.

Chengdu IFS general operation manager Christina Hau says her team chose Argent because his installments are well integrated with public spaces.

"The panda installment is closely connected with the opening of IFS Chengdu. We posed a question to Lawrence: how do you make all things come together? Our building is gigantic, and we wanted something unique," Hau says.