The Skyscraper Hater Behind the Year's Best Skyscraper
This article is for subscribers only.
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat chose the best skyscraper of 2012 last night: Beijing’s CCTV building, the headquarters of the Chinese Central Television designed by Rem Koolhaas and his Office for Metropolitan Architecture.
It is one of the more unusual designs ever to have been built, on any scale, with two 44-story towers linked by a 13-story connecting bridge that takes a 90-degree turn. While the locals have likened it to a big pair of boxer shorts and a woman on her knees, it strikes this writer as a tower that started out ready to soar, thought better of it, took a turn, and plunged back into the ground.