photo: http://www.chinese-architecture.info/TEN/TEN-CHINA.htm
photo: El rey cagando / The King shitting
photo: http://www.chinasmack.com/pictures/cctv-fire-funny-photoshops-by-chinese-netizens/#more-5108It was been two weeks since the Television Cultural Center (TVCC) caught on fire. In a live broadcast in China on Tuesday, CCTV apologized for the horrible impact of the blaze. "CCTV feels sorry for the great loss inflicted on national assets. CCTV sincerely apologizes for the traffic congestion and inconvenience to residents nearby," the network said. The Beijing fire control bureau already confirmed the fire was started by fireworks squad which is illegally hired by the CCTV officials, which shoot hundreds of huge firecrackers above the new construction site. The fire is no doubt a significant loss to the nation. According to China View News, Opinions differ widely of the loss: one architect has estimated that it is likely to reach US $ 85 to 100 million, excluding some shops inside the building and 241 five-star standard rooms.
After this incident, there are a lot of discussions going on about the Feng Shui of this iconic new addition to the Beijing skyline. Feng Shui, according to Feng Shui Master Dr. Simona Mainini, is an ancient Chinese studies of which can help balancing the energy flow in our living environment. It can enable us to take advantage of favorable environments in positively energetic, healthy and harmonious houses and/or work places. Discussions mostly are not favorable to the design of the CCTV tower. There are few main criticisms about the tower: the exterior of the building is covered with thousands of glasses shaped as rhombus. They believed that this symbolize thousands of broken glass pieces cutting into the skin. This would affect residents living around the area and will find difficult to get to sleep; the cantilever of the building is also believed as objecting the natural force, gravity. Chinese Feng Shui believed in creating harmony between nature and not going against it; the asymmetrical of the two towers are not following what Chinese architecture been practicing for 5000 years, symmetrical and formal. A famous Chinese saying, literally, “if the top beam is not straight, the lower beams will be crooked.” The form of the building probably illustrates this concept; The CCTV tower is believed not having a solid base, and having the top piece hanging across air. This opposed the idea of building everything step by step, level by level. With all these considerations, some people may think that the fire caught two weeks ago was due to the bad Feng Shui of the CCTV tower next to it. And it might further affect the luck of China.
Besides Feng Shui, symbolism is a very important consideration in Chinese society. They often give nicknames to architectures in China. Nicknames can be amazingly literal things in China. For example, the Great Wall (or literally, the “Thousands-miles-long-wall”) could demonstrate it easily. Many of the famous new buildings that were built in Beijing recently have been given their own names by the people. For example, the National Center for the Performing Arts is known as the “Duck Egg.” The National Stadium is known as the “Bird's Nest.” They're both humble yet fitting names for these new architectures. The people at CCTV are apparently not so happy with the public's nickname for their stunning new headquarters. The building consists of two structures rise from a common production platform. They merge at the top to create a cantilevered headquarters for management, forming a continuous loop. However, to the people of Beijing China, it is simple, a pair of “Big pants.” This definitely is not a symbol of goodness to people in China.
The CCTV tower might not be the favor to some people in China, yet is widely appreciated by the western:
“The project is one of the most visionary since modernism and beyond. It pushes the limits of architecture, not just formally but, more importantly, socially, culturally, and technologically through the reinvention of the tall building. The various functions of buildings, their spatial articulation and organization, have been completely rethought to provoke a new kind of collective construct with the potential for social and urban change.”
written by Tina di Carlo, assistant curator of architecture and design at the Museum for Modern Art (MoMA)
The building's loop "expresses a unity of a production process, of what a media company can be. It isn't promoting isolationism but connectivity," Mr. Scheeren says.
Among the estimated 10,000 new structures being built in Beijing, the CCTV Tower is probably the most ambitious. It would almost be impossible that this structure could be built anywhere else in the world other than China because the design would not pass the building codes. However, in China, there was an openness to making things happen that "created an extraordinary context for architecture," says Mr. Scheeren. This $800 million CCTV Tower definitely drew the world’s attention. It is likely to become a symbol of China's recent accomplishments with its massiveness and impossible structure. Rocco Yim, one of the judges at the design competition that eventually picked the square tower, says he initially had great reservations about the "extremely irrational design." But he came to see it as representing "a certain spirit that is just what the new China is all about," says the Hong Kong−based architect. "Irreverent, a can−do spirit, fearless and extremely confident." The cantilever, essentially borrows from the technology, except that if the section were a bridge, it would be an extremely large and heavy one. At he most point, it is a full 11 stories high, and it includes a cantilevered overhang that will “float” above almost 250 feet of nothingness. This “impossible” idea, which does work against the gravity, undergoes serious of research and experiments. It is proudly presented to the public as an achievement, instead of a wrong approach of opposing the nature.
Five years ago, it would have been impossible to construct the tower because the technology weren't as sophisticated, says Andrew Chan, group deputy chairman of Arup Group Ltd., a global design and business consulting firm. "We had to write the rulebook," he says. Beijing's building codes, most likely other building codes in other countries, had no provision for a building of this shape. A special panel of 13 structural engineers is formed especially for the CCTV Tower. The team studied a three−story−high mock up of the CCTV Tower that they had placed on a "shake table," which is a hydraulic platform that simulates when earthquake happens. The platform was designed with several hundred sensors to help builders observe the movements of the more than 10,000 steel beams in the tower. This could let the experts know which parts of the building would undergo the most compressions and tensions. As explained in "CCTV Tower Mirrors Beijing's Rising Ambitions" by Mei Fong, the outer surface of CCTV Tower will be wrapped in a steel mesh resembling a diamond−like net, with the main structure of the building outside, instead of inside. Pressures can "literally travel around the system and find the best load path into the ground," says Mr. Scheeren. The building’s exterior structure, instead of symbolizing broken glasses cutting into the body, is appreciated both practically and aesthetically.
We could see that the CCTV tower is definitely controversial. The debated are especially vigorous between the people of China and the western. Someone thinks it’s too expensive, somewhere think it’s worth the money; someone thinks it’s ugly, someone thinks it’s a beautiful structure; someone thinks it’s a disaster to work against the nature, someone thinks it’s a miracle of engineering. No matter what, catching on a fire is definitely not a good idea. The government should pay more attention controlling this kind of illegal behavior.
