The African union commission delegation headed by the vice chairman Patrick Mazimhaka paid a special visit to Tongji University to discuss the design of “conference center of African union” in order to reach consensus.

The vice president Prof. Chen Xiaolong received the delegation in Yifu building. The other attendants include the president of school of architecture planning and design Prof. Ding Jiemin, designer of the “conference center” Ren Lizhi and the representatives from china architecture design institute.

It is introduced that the conference center is located at the capital city of Ethiopia. With a construction area of 46000 m2, it is composed of 2550 large conference halls, 681 medium-sized conference rooms, multi-functional rooms, office buildings, emergency medical care center, digital library, square, car parking and plane parking lot.

In the public bidding process hosted by the Ministry of Commerce, the design and plan proposed by Tongji won the bid. With the theme of “China and Africa hand in hand to promote common prosperity”, the plan embodies many symbolic elements to imply the deep friendship between China and African, the cohesion of African and the rapid development and growth of African continent.

At the opening ceremony of 9th African union summit conference, Prof. Ren Lizhi of Tongji introduced the design to all the attendants, and attracted overwhelming attention.