China Central Television Headquarters (CCTV) Tower - An Architectural Perspective

It was in 2004 when the China Central television decided to get itself a new headquarters in Beijing. The plans were to build a new SKYSCRAPER next to the old headquarters. The "Twisted Donut" or "The Pants" (as it is usually referred by the locals) was to be a sky scraper with a difference. "We wanted to think of a skyscraper that would not fall into the trap of racing for height, of trying to dominate the skyline by being the tallest," Scheeren, the chief architect was quoted saying. So when one sees this skyscraper he would be sure it is a Lego set of some kid. The building was among several projects in Beijing as the city reinvented itself for the 2008 Olympics and gained a reputation in the process as a playground for architectural ambition. "It's easy to look at the building as an accomplishment of engineering," they said. "But for me, what is more important than that is the social ambition this project pursues in the way it brings people together."



Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren of OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture) were the architects in charge for the building, while Arup provided the complex engineering design. The 234-meter tall 54 floored building, covering a construction area of 550,000 square meters,  4,100,000 square feet of floor space, creating an irregular grid on the building’s facade with an open center, costed over 1.3 billion U.S. dollars. The project had caused much controversy for its twisted structure and luxury.

The ground breaking took place on September 22, 2004. The construction began with the two towers and then extended to the horizontal parts. The main building is not a traditional tower, but a loop of six horizontal and vertical sections. The linking level features 4m-wide glass floors allowing visitors to peer down to a 162m drop below their feet. This tower employs 10,000 people and 200 channels. Of the two towers, the taller tower is 234 m high and the smaller one is 194 m high. The challenge was that the two towers lean at 6 degrees and meet at 90 degrees at the top and bottom forming a continuous loop. So here not only the load due to the horizontal part was to be considered but also the buildings moment due to the lean. The building was built as two separate towers that were later combined once both towers were fully supported.

As already mentioned this is one skyscraper with a difference. So where do we look for codes to suit the case? It broke Beijing’s building codes and the test needed by a special review panel. The standard specifications for gravity, the lateral loads didn’t apply. The engineer’s solution is to create “tube” of diagonal supports. In simple words some steel diagrids which could allow for glass façade without compromising with the strength were employed. The irregular pattern of this diagrids allows us to see the distribution of forces along the surface.

The building was completed in 2008, but was damaged in 2009 by a fire that ravaged the area after a fireworks explosion.  The buildings were renovated and have been regaining function steadily. One of the two towers hosts the CCTV while the other mirror image tower has TVCC, or the Television Cultural Center which is a public structure housing a state-of-the-art broadcasting theater, cultural facilities, and a five-star hotel.

The inhabitants of earthquake-prone Beijing simply dubbed it Wei Fang — the Dangerous Building. Reason was that they were not sure if it could really stand by itself that too when the seismic forces strike. But these architects and engineers have made us rethink what sky scrapers can really be!

Image Credits: OMA