China's New Weird Olympic Buildings....

[3113]

So, whadda think? Is this the next "Eiffel Tower"?

It's an audacious monolith that looks like two drunken high-rise towers leaning over and holding each other up at the shoulders. The eye-catching building, which is nearly finished, will be the headquarters of China Central Television, the staid propaganda arm of China's ruling Communist Party , and it's perhaps the boldest and most daring of several new buildings that have given Beijing a stunning new appearance for the upcoming Summer Olympic Games.

In keeping with the playful nature of the new buildings, all have weird popular names. There's "the egg" and the "bird's nest." The "water cube" isn't far away, and lastly there's "short pants," also known as the "twisted doughnut." The last of them is the new television building, the CCTV headquarters, and it can nearly make one dizzy standing on the ground and looking up at its odd, teetering 49-story towers connected by a multistory, cantilevered, jagged cross section over open space at a vertiginous 36 stories up in the air.

Designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, the building has been called an "angular marvel" and a "dazzling reinvention of the skyscraper."

Its engineering is so complex that the designers say such a building couldn't have been built a few years ago. That's because it took immense computing power to ensure that the design could withstand huge pressures in the earthquake-prone capital. Some 10,000 tons of steel were used in its construction.

...The architects have built huge glass panels in the floor of the cantilevered cross section of the building, so that visitors can get the woozy sensation of walking above nothing but air.

More here.

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20080717/capt.97b82c5a30b94f648d50b863b878335d.china_olympics_cctv_tower_bej102.jpg?x=275&y=345&sig=EX4RmLysSKMS.U.cmaH8Xw--

Here's the birds nest:

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20080716/capt.b53202f99f3d41e6898127e91817814a.china_olympics_xhg114.jpg?x=400&y=243&sig=CX5YGBYJ5kHgNQfYnP2T8A--

Ice Cube (It's not just a name for rappers!):

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20080701/capt.c73334124d854b9ba563ab51ccb7959a.changing_beijing_xlat105.jpg?x=400&y=263&sig=ZyaMoIY3MhmJHVTkxuDwjQ--

Egg:

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20080718/i/r1522514532.jpg?x=400&y=266&sig=Kah7BWcIhVd96O4FvKAg3g--

 

[Guest]

The buildings are amazing! I would love the chance to see them in person.

What have they planned to call the new one?

Drunken scrunched shoulder men?

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Darth Vader...

 

[3113]

What have they planned to call the new one?

Says in the article. It's "short pants" or the "twisted doughnut." I like doughnut myself.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

They're fun!

Some are beautiful. All are interesting.

 

[cheerful_deviant]

Speaking as an engineer, all of the buildings, especially the twisted tower and the birds nest are amazing engineering feats. And the article is quite correct, many of them wouldn't have been buildable even a few years ago.

But unfortunatly many 'modern' buildings don't stand the test of time well. Most end up looking dated in less than 20 years. Think of a building like the Prudential Center in Boston.

http://www.aviewoncities.com/img/boston/kveus3228s.jpg​

Not really an ugly building, but it just screams 1960's!

Or Two Columbus Circle in New York:

http://www.glasssteelandstone.com/Images/US/NY/NYC/2ColumbusCircle-001.jpg​

Which is just... well... odd.

However, some such as the Sydney Opera House become signature pieces of their host city. So time will tell.

 

[starrkers]

I can't help wondering how some of them would handle an earthquake.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

The Prudential Building in Chicago, next to the AON Center with the visiontron in the foreground.

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/z0302a1700/face.jpg

Then there is The Bean...

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/z0302a1700/bean-1.jpg

 

[3113]

Then there is The Bean...

http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/z0302a1700/bean-1.jpg

Does the bean count as a building?

 

[TheeGoatPig]

Speaking as an engineer, all of the buildings, especially the twisted tower and the birds nest are amazing engineering feats. And the article is quite correct, many of them wouldn't have been buildable even a few years ago.

But unfortunatly many 'modern' buildings don't stand the test of time well. Most end up looking dated in less than 20 years. Think of a building like the Prudential Center in Boston.

http://www.aviewoncities.com/img/boston/kveus3228s.jpg
Not really an ugly building, but it just screams 1960's!

Or Two Columbus Circle in New York:

http://www.glasssteelandstone.com/Images/US/NY/NYC/2ColumbusCircle-001.jpg
Which is just... well... odd.

However, some such as the Sydney Opera House become signature pieces of their host city. So time will tell.

I think those are lovely buildings. I don't care if they look like the decade they are from. It just adds to the variety of the cityscape.

 

[keeblercrumb]

Rocket Man

There is anther egg you know.....

In Albany New York... which was begun in 1966.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

The Bean is also known as the Glass Ass, even though it's Chromed Steel, and no, it's not a building.

 

[Carnevil9]

There is London's famed "Gherkin" --

http://www.jimbatty.com/IMG/london/gherkin/5G128012_D.jpg

 

[Guest]

The Bean is also known as the Glass Ass, even though it's Chromed Steel, and no, it's not a building.

Oh, it's very cool!

So it's a sculpture? A shiny bean? Although I like Glass Ass better.

 

[3113]

There is London's famed "Gherkin" --

http://www.jimbatty.com/IMG/london/gherkin/5G128012_D.jpg

Looks like bullet.

 

[Guest]

And there's the "Armadillo" in Cardiff:

http://garnet.acns.fsu.edu/%7Ebstiftel/wmc_davidallen.jpg

 

[Liar]

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e394/mi_liar/hsb-turning-torso2.jpg

We need more weird houses in the world.

 

[starrkers]

There's supposed to be a rotating tower going up in Dubai (where else), 80 storeys with each floor able to rotate independently of the others, driven by wind turbines, "resulting in a unique and ever evolving structure that introduces a fourth dimension to architecture, Time".

Website

 

[jomar]

Cool! should look great in hi def.