The highly-acclaimed Shanghai World Financial Center, designed by Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates, has become a new landmark of Shanghai.(Photo Source: China Daily/Cheng Qianjun)

In the midst of the building fervor that has invigorated Beijing in the lead-up to the summer Olympics, a minute was taken, albeit across the globe, to examine the projects that China has recently seen come to fruition.

The China Institute hosted in New York a special program on June 25 entitled "Zest to Impress: Architecture in China", featuring architects from the world's leading design firms involved in high-profile projects in China.

Bradford Perkins, chairman of the firm Perkins Eastman, called China's building boom the greatest the world has ever witnessed.

"The Olympics are a very big project, but in relation to what's going on in China, not really that big," Perkins says.

Perkins Eastman has had a presence in China for the last 10 years. This February, the firm announced the creation of a Wholly Foreign Owned Enterprise (WFOE) in Shanghai to better serve its East Asian clients. In May, the 800-person firm was honored with the "International Achievement Award" at the fourth annual World Trade Week Awards Breakfast in New York.

As a man who has designed projects in 11 Chinese provinces, including Beijing's Tufu Bay Resort, Shanghai's China Merchants Bank building and Chongqing's Luneng Park, Perkins sees the future of China's architectural development as a succession of wild dreams coming true.