Fire guts part of a Beijing Olympics icon

One section of the strikingly photogenic Beijing tower for the Chinese state broadcast network, CCTV, erupted in flames today -- Monday evening in China -- on the last night of celebrations marking the Lunar New Year.

The fire struck not the main, torquing CCTV tower, but an adjacent shorter structure, in which a 241-room Mandarin Oriental Hotel was due to open later this year. The entire complex, still under construction, was designed by Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture and was a star of television coverage of August's Beijing Olympics.

Although the larger tower was luckily spared, this is no minor loss.

The architectural composition of the complex as a whole -- which I toured with Scheeren over the summer, and which I argued in a year-end piece "already ranks as the most significant piece of architecture of our young century" -- depends on the shorter hotel tower, which is known as TVCC. It is the hotel, in fact, that helps give the main tower its strange, shifting sense of scale. From certain angles the smaller section -- no shrimp itself at 34 stories tall -- looks like the tail of the big tower's dragon, from others like a fleeing creature about to be devoured by the CCTV's gaping mouth.

 

For the blogger Geoff Manaugh, images of the fire mean only one thing: The boom is over. Potent symbolism aside, though, I'd be very surprised if the hotel weren't instantly rebuilt. The Chinese leadership has understood the graphic power of the CCTV complex -- the way it suggests a modern, ambitious and innovative new China -- from the earliest stages, and it seems highly unlikely it would allow the charred remains of the hotel to stand for any extended period. This is particularly true given Chinese sensitivity around the idea that its economy is rapidly losing steam.

So there's likely to be no drawn-out, painstaking investigation of the wreckage by some Chinese version of the FBI or ATF. As soon as the last ember is out, I'd guess, the bulldozers will be clearing the site to begin again. Even in a global slowdown -- perhaps especially in one -- construction in China can operate at lightning speed.

Twitter feed is here. But take rumors that the blaze was started by the fireworks themselves with a grain of salt.

More to come, I'm sure.

-- Christopher Hawthorne

Photos: top, Oliver Weiken / EPA; bottom, Associated Press

Comments

[Poem]

I'm writing from Beijing, and I witnessed the fire from the window of my flat here in CBD.

Truth be told, local Beijingers were never fond of the architecture of these buildings. They scoffed that it was done by a non-Chinese firm, that it had absolutely no Chinese aesthetic sensibility, and the main CCTV tower looked like a bottom squatting over a traditional Chinese floor toilet. If the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven are the paragons of Chinese design and sense of space, then the CCTV complex is a total affront to that, a blatant architectural statement in every way. Everything about its marvelously iconic, brilliantly modern existence is an encroachment into what is really a culture seeped in mysticism.

The angularity of the buildings must have offended the feng shui gods. Too jutting, too twisted - too inharmonious. And having that illusory floor that connects the two CCTV towers is another offense -- we watched with bated breath as it was being constructed -- because it arrogantly declares "yes, it CAN be done, yes, we CAN bend steel and defy gravity like this", never mind if it evokes feelings of vertigo, OF THE FLOOR DROPPING OUT beneath you.

We're still all in shock. A burning tower jars the psyche in ways you cannot rationalize. There's the Tarot card XVI, there's World Trade Center, there's Babel. But I'll be all Greek about it and say it in a word: HUBRIS. It's time for China to renew its Mandate of Heaven.

[Eric]

Dr. Adford, I'm guessing you're not a real doctor? Just a shot in the dark there... Question - is this your standard comment for every story that involves fire? Even someone who has filled his brain almost entirely with conspiracy theories must have an iota of brain power left in order to understand that not all buildings are created alike...?

[Ruud]

Was an eyewitness of both the amazing fireworks set off by CCTV around 2000 local time as well as the start of the fire on top of TVCC (name of the hotel building) at around 2030.

The fireworks was very big, even by Chinese standards. It was also way too close to the TVCC building, fireworks visibly landed on top. So no grains of salt here, it was the cause of the fire.

With regards to the design, tastes as well as feng shui masters differ in opinion, regardless if you like it or not, there are much much worse architectural buildings around in Beijing / China and the world for that matter.

Nevertheless, RIP to the fireman who died as a result.

[jo]

Funny how it didn't fall through itself after about 8hrs of burning. I guess thermal expansion only happens on the WTC site. For those calling people names, open your eyes and just do alittle commonsense research. At the very least take a physics 101 course or a thermodynamics course. Its not that difficult to see that we are not being told an accurate story by those who want to be our masters.

[naomi]

Here is one more person reading LA Times in Beijing!

An interesting feeling here, as reported by others above. Most locals really didn't like the architecture of these buildings. And some young Chinese actually think the whole thing is rather exciting and interesting.

Also rather interesting. Friends reported that sitting on Third Ring Road (the road that runs next to the tower) in the gridlocked traffic, they could feel the heat from the fire in their taxi.

[hipno650]

Honestly for all you that believe what the news tells you all the time I feel pity for you
that is how Nazi Germany became so powerful because of people like you--
and we will be in for a rude awakening soon
and you better realize that this economic crisis is just the start--
Can you smell the North American Union?

[bixlives]

I'm in construction management and have built high-rise structures for 30 years. I don't believe the fireworks caused this massive of a fire unless there were flammable materials stored in the upper levels of the hotel. And even if the hotel was "unfinished" it was still occupied during the Olympics and that means the life-safety systems (including fire sprinklers) were operational.
There must be more to this story...

wow ok that is sweet