Comments on: China Central Television Headquarters by OMA

By: gweedo

gweedo — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 23:32:57 +0000

last saturday Koolhaas held a lecture in Milan which i attended to, the subject of his lecture was “architecture now, and future architecture”, he basically forecast a comeback to simple shapes and more functional less expensive, no-frills buildings.
showin some of OMA’s concepts for future projects, developed in this direction.

someone asked why this recent CCTV HQ building, with his odd shape, goes against what emerged durin the lecture as Koolhaas’ current outlook on contemporary architecture….

he replied sayin that CCTV HQ building was conceived “for this particular moment in chinese history”, as a statement of creative freedom, something that could cause a change in the way china sees creativity nowadays…

By: cctv

cctv — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 08:29:11 +0000

wonderful

By: spooki

spooki — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:56:31 +0000

its sooo goofy(!), almost cartoony, and look at how it dwarfs the surrounding buildings. i feel like its a big joke.

and yes big black i agree, its looks far to chunky and ultimately too stable to suggest sublime!

and i dont understand why the diagrid squiggles at the top? it looks naive.

By: zuy

zuy — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:41:02 +0000

I saw yesterday the grand canyon platform..and .i have the vision of this TV building that dominates a city of old houses with people living as yesterday!!!!

By: the big black & white zebra

the big black & white zebra — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:22:03 +0000

Roel

It still looks ugly, not sublime or beautiful, disjointed, uneasy, awkward and unbeneficial to urban life….

explain why you think this is a positive building for our urban environment.

tbb&wz

By: zuy

zuy — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 10:07:55 +0000

it’s arc de Triumph of what?

By: Berliner

Berliner — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:44:41 +0000

I am positively surprised, that the project does not play out its monumental formal character. It actually looks rather humble for such an in-your-face-form. They really did not fall into the trap of monumentalizing it. Even the choice of a rather matte glass gives it something less aggressive, less obvious compared to the glitz context. I think it looks better, than what the renderings were anticipating.

By: QUY LONG

QUY LONG — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 09:37:25 +0000

It looks strange with surroundings. Big cities in China now developing mixed architecture. I feel nothing even OMA’s building is awesome itself.

By: Roel

Roel — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 22:18:29 +0000

2 the big black & white zebra> The ‘glazing patterns’ you are referring to is actually part of the construction. They started with an even pattern on the building and changed it depending on the load it must carry. Hence the pattern is more dense at the corner where the overhanging starts for example.

2 One> In the documentary ‘Rem Koolhaas, a kind of architect’, Cecil Balmond said that Koolhaas called him at night just saying he wanted a loop for the CCTV building. I think this was more a ’solution’ for the normally vertical skyscraper, than a specific answer to the location.

By: MIRTEC

MIRTEC — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:18:24 +0000

one thing I respect about OMA is the way they can organize complex building programs such as building for the China Central Television Headquarters… when you study the internal organisation of this building, it’s quite a masterpiece to make such an interesting building on such a small building site… even though I don’t like the look of it that much, this is nice and decent architecture… welcome to 2008…