The contrast could hardly be more pronounced: in the middle of the gigantic booming city of Shanghai, amidst its twenty to forty-story high-rises is located a small, roughly one hundred-year-old half-timbered house on Yueyang Road with two modest stories and a pointed gable-roofed entrance, flanked on each side by the figure of a lion. This picturesque building that resists fitting into its surroundings is home to a highly modern project, the Shanghai Institute for Advanced Studies (SIAS), which is indeed the youngest of all the science academies worldwide, being only two years old. On entering the building, the hubbub of the city is left behind and one is suddenly immersed into the world of science. In addition to offices and the cafeteria on the main floor, the small but well equipped library is found with an inviting atmosphere for reading and on the first floor a lecture hall, equipped with the comfort of modern conference technology -- a place for deep intellectual thought.
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