 The Olympic Dream in Beijing stretches way beyond the sporting arena. Ever since the Chinese capital was awarded the right to host the 2008 Games back in July 2001, it has embarked on one of the world’s most astonishing programmes of urban restructuring.
Myriad new shopping malls, hotels, office towers, subway lines and a
new airport terminal form a key part of a city-wide infrastructure
creation programme, as do some of history’s most spectacular sports
stadia. With less than ten months to go until the Olympic Flame is lit
in the extraordinary 91,000-seater Bird’s Nest National Stadium, the
planning of New Beijing is starting to become reality.
Though it remains rather dusty and polluted, the Beijing of today bears
little comparison to the city that won the Olympic bid six years ago.
Whereas old Beijing used to feature historic low-rise hutong
neighbourhoods as well as wide, monolithic buildings, now the focus is
on building skywards. The most striking new feature is the central CBD,
which – when completed – will include around 300 new towers.
New Beijing includes an eye-catching, if rather disconnected, ensemble
of experimental modern architecture. And glass – every new building
uses lots and lots of glass. The magnificent New Poly Plaza, for
example, claims to feature the world’s largest flexible cable glass
curtain wall, and looks particularly impressive when lit up at night.
Recently opened, the Wanda Plaza is a mixed-scale hotel, shopping and
office complex on a scale rarely seen in western cities. And it
features lots of glass. Ditto China Central Place, which features
upscale shopping, residential compounds and Ritz Carlton and JW
Marriott Hotels, and the soaring Yintai Centre, which will be home to
China’s first Park Hyatt hotel.
 Two of the CBD’s tallest glass towers are still under construction. Due
to be completed early next year, Rem Koolhaas’ astonishing 540,000
square metre CCTV headquarters seems set to become one of the world’s
most photographed (glass) buildings.
Located just off the main Dongchang’an Avenue central thoroughfare, it
is described by its engineers, Arup, as “not a traditional tower, but a
continuous loop of horizontal and vertical sections that establish an
urban site rather than point to the sky. The irregular grid on the
building’s facades is an expression of the forces travelling throughout
its structure.” Which is a roundabout way of saying that this is a very
unusual-looking building.
The CCTV HQ is now starting to take shape – with its
yet-to-be-connected steeply angled towers looking very much like they
should actually fall over – but the project has been far from smooth.
“It would be a significant structural challenge anywhere in the world,
but is especially so as Beijing is in a highly seismic zone,” Arup says
rather matter-of-factly.
Across the street at the China World Centre, a large convention,
exhibition, shopping and hotel complex that first opened in 1990, the
new China World Tower III is rising from the ground. The 74-floor, 330m
building – which on current view looks somewhat similar to Hong Kong’s
Two IFC Tower – will become Beijing’s tallest building when finished.
The creation of new business infrastructure – and, in essence, of a new
city within a city – is designed to convert Beijing into “an
international capital,” one that can punch its commercial weight on the
global stage long after the Olympians have been, conquered and
departed. And, no less importantly, a city that can outsmart, out-build
and out-grow its historic southern nemesis, Shanghai.
One thing is for sure, Beijing’s grandiose architectural
experimentation is creating a glass-encased capital city that its
leaders believe is more reflective of an ambitious nation moving
smoothly towards assuming the status of the world’s next superpower.
Here is how the CCTV HQ and China World Tower III will look when completed:
CCTV - http://www.arcspace.com/architects/koolhaas/chinese_television/
China World - http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=chinaworldtradecentertoweriii-beijing-china
Last update : Wednesday, 24 October 2007
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