Yu's father, also an architect, was banished from Beijing during the Cultural Revolution and sent to a manual job in an industrial town in Shandong Province. The younger Yu, after returning to study in Beijing, worked as an architect in Singapore and Tokyo. He then came to Shanghai in part to bring Chinese character to a cityscape redrawn with an international eye.
"In the color, the material, the urban planning, we can make it local," Yu says.
It's not too late?
Yu, his clothes loose and his hair long, concedes that the foundations have changed.
"We have to follow the new lifestyle," he says.
Yu's colleague, Song Zhaoqing opens a laptop on the table and shows photos of the single-family luxury villas Yu created for a development west of Shanghai. Then Song clicks through a slide show detailing the intimate angles of a suburban shopping center, conceived last October, then designed, built, and opened for business by May.
As the two architects talk about poverty and excess, it is unclear whether or when the new building rules will curtail the work they do. Yu describes their more immediate reality.
"For the Chinese local developer . . . all they have is money," Yu says. "They need the land to change to beauty. And the beauty to change to money. Then they can have more money."
So stand again on the concrete promenade of the Bund. This time, turn only a bit. Face not the facade, but the sidewalk throngs, citizens of the city. It is rush hour, and the taxis and Mercedes, bicycles and buses jockey for position. The pedestrian crowds glance at the way ahead. Frantic? Eager? Unsure? They shift and surge.
Contact Tom Haines at thaines@globe.com.