link link BEIJING — London has Big Ben, Paris has the Eiffel Tower , San Francisco has the Golden Gate Bridge and now Beijing has an iconic structure that's likely to identify the city forever. ADVERTISEMENT It's an audacious monolith that looks like two drunken high-rise towers leaning over and holding each other up at the shoulders. The eye-catching building, which is nearly finished, will be the headquarters of China Central Television, the staid propaganda arm of China's ruling Communist Party , and it's perhaps the boldest and most daring of several new buildings that have given Beijing a stunning new appearance for the upcoming Summer Olympic Games. In keeping with the playful nature of the new buildings, all have weird popular names. There's "the egg" and the "bird's nest." The "water cube" isn't far away, and lastly there's "short pants," also known as the "twisted doughnut." The last of them is the new television building, the CCTV headquarters, and it can nearly make one dizzy standing on the ground and looking up at its odd, teetering 49-story towers connected by a multistory, cantilevered, jagged cross section over open space at a vertiginous 36 stories up in the air. Designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, the building has been called an "angular marvel" and a "dazzling reinvention of the skyscraper."
Kind of ironic that this building is for CCTV, which has the most unimaginative, bland, PC(in terms of Chinese culture) programming ever. Of course, they're still unbelievably rich because they have a monopoly on national programming...
Not mine, but a flickr gallery I found on this building. http://www.flickr.com/photos/chaspope/sets/72157600250505981/
how is the middle section supported? it would be cool if that floor was glass! imagine looking down btw i am scared of heights. can't even look down from a 2nd story.
Why are the Chinese trying to copy Dubai? Are these structures as good as the traditional structures?
"On the bridge where the two leaning legs of the office building meet, an additional 11 stories will go up, with nothing but the Beijing smog below. People with vertigo should avoid the glass floor Scheeren plans for the viewing deck 525 feet above the city's bustling Central Business District." http://wirednewyork.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16718
Buildings like these can't possibly be backed by investors looking for most bang for the buck. The ones in Dubai are usually rich barons with nothing better (at least in their minds) to do with their billions. But there is absolutely no way the building above is a good site plan...
