CLOSE AD ×

SeeCTV

SeeCTV

Former AN editor and occasional China correspondent Andrew Yang sent us some pictures recently of what he describes as Beijing’s new, unavoidable landmark. Whether it’s on the scale of, say, the Empire State Building, we’re not sure, but it’s certainly looks as symbolic. He writes:

Whenever anyone visits Beijing, it is hard not to run into Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren’s CCTV building, which has clearly finished construction on the exterior, and is now undergoing a massive interior fitout.

Sitting on the city’s Third Ring Road, CCTV is quite a sight to behold–both for its engineering mastery, and also for its gravity-defying construction. I kept passing by it, just about every day, and snapping these pictures. Just like Herzog & de Meuron’s Olympic Stadium, which residents have been calling the Bird’s Nest, I learned that the locals have taken to referring to CCTV as “a pair of shorts.”

Maybe they mean that it looks like short legs sitting on an invisible seat–I don’t quite see it, but the building certainly takes on a dramatic view each time when viewed from different angles.

We couldn’t help but notice how impressive and imposing the building does look, though also how rendered. Alan has a helpful theory, though–he blames it on the smog.


CLOSE AD ×