Beijing Day 01 - CCTV Building

CCTV Beijing
OMA

On the taxi cruising along the expressway,with the massive bridge looming directly ahead, the CCTV building can look dark and menacing.

From another angle the legs seem almost fragile. And from yet another the bridge’s tilted roof gives the building a strangely two-dimensional quality.

These distortions are reinforced by the structural system, an irregular network of steel cross-bracing that looks as if it were etched into the building’s skin. Because the cross-bracing becomes denser where the stresses are most severe — for example, where the bridge connects to the towers — at certain points the structure seems to be straining against all odds to stay up.

The forms are a reworking of classical perspective; the irregular structure is an attack on Modernist ideas about structural purity. Both are an effort to break down what Mr. Koolhaas, like a number of other architects of his generation, sees as the oppressiveness of the Cartesian order that has shaped architecture for centuries. The design is also striving to make room for the impurities and imperfections that make us human.

more photos of the CCTV whilst on the cab...