Set on a site that’s about as large as 37 football fields, Rem Koolhaas’s television authority headquarters in Beijing may initially seem intimidating. This 54-story tower leans and looms like some kind of science-fiction creature poised to stomp all over the surrounding central business district.A rendering of the Central Chinese Television building.
But if the five-million-square-foot building is one of the largest ever constructed, its architect sees it as a people-friendly reinvention of the skyscraper.
“Awe is not usually a condition our buildings inspire,” Mr. Koolhaas said in an interview at the Museum of Modern Art, where a show devoted to the Central Chinese Television building — known as CCTV — opened yesterday. “Amidst all the skyscrapers there, it’s relatively low. It will feel accessible.”
2 comments:
In a century destined to be marked by the diminution of the United States, the future depends not so much on what Americans will do to avoid the inevitable decline but on how the Chinese will manage their responsibility as the engine of the world economy. Will they merely replicate us in garish displays of wealth or seek to transcend the urge to floss?
I think China is trying too hard with these bold arthouse statements.
All that exposed surface area = high HVAC costs.
I think a better way to lead the architectual edge would be with ultra-efficient green buildings that showcase sustainability, not flash.
You hear about the woman building a home out of a scrapped 747? Now that's RECYLCING and a cool idea!
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