The Chinese city of Chongqing is little known in the west, yet with its thirty-two million inhabitants it is twice the size of the Netherlands. It lies on the Yangtze, in the province of Sichuan.

Ferit Kuyas stayed there on dozens of occasions for long periods and became fascinated by the megalomaniac construction fervour he witnessed, as well as by its beauty. The almost ubiquitous haze, naturally present in the region but intensified by large-scale pollution, gave the work an added layer of mystery almost automatically. He concentrated on the periphery, where the enormity of the place cannot be directly seen but rather felt. The result is a stifling and exceptional volume that displays all the superlatives used of the country: huge, unstoppable, terrifying, incomprehensible, fascinating, beautiful.