GAD Editorial · Published ·
The familiar skyscraper is a race for height that ends in a lonely spire. OMA set out to challenge that model. The CCTV Headquarters in Beijing, designed by OMA under Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren, is his rebuttal — a 234-metre tower that refuses to be a tower. Two leaning legs rise from a shared base, bend toward each other, and join in a 75-metre cantilevered loop, forming a continuous circuit of studios, offices, and production space.
Completed in 2012, the building was an engineering wager as much as an architectural one. Connecting the two leaning towers required the engineers to account for their separate movement, including temperature effects, before closing the elevated loop. The diagrid exoskeleton — visible as a dense web across the facade — does the structural work and supplies the building's restless texture.
The symbolism was unavoidable: China's state broadcaster housed in a gravity-defying knot, nicknamed "big underpants" by Beijingers with the affectionate irreverence the city reserves for its landmarks. But the serious point survived the jokes. In 2013 the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat named it the Best Tall Building Worldwide, recognising a tower that challenged the typology instead of just extending it. The loop remains the most convincing proof that the skyscraper's next century doesn't have to look like its last.
Key facts
- Completed: 2012
- Location: Beijing, China
- Architects: OMA — Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren
- Scale: 234 m tall; 75 m cantilevered loop
- Recognition: CTBUH Best Tall Building Worldwide, 2013