The lecture is part of world tour of presentations carried on in 2025 in several universities and venues to diffuse the output of a three-year research and new publication namley “New Silk Road. The Architecture of the Belt and Road Initiative” (Birkhauser 2025). The lecture reveals lights and shadows of China’s Belt and Road Initiative constructions on the ground. Starting in 2013, the BRI has transformed many places worldwide, such as China. In some cases, it provided crucial infrastructure, such as the General Hospital of Niger in Niamey or the National Library of El Salvador. At the same time, it also generated new urban areas, e.g., the Free Zone in Khorghos, Kazakhstan, with sometimes controversial effects on local communities and the environment. While many sources discuss the BRI from a geopolitical and economic perspective, this lecture narrates the outcomes of this program in architectural and spatial terms. Discussing them through thematic categories that challenge established dichotomies in the architectural discourse entails a survey of 20 case studies documented with maps, architectural drawings, and photographs created explicitly for this research.