{"id":223,"date":"2011-07-13T22:40:38","date_gmt":"2011-07-14T04:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=223"},"modified":"2011-07-13T22:40:38","modified_gmt":"2011-07-14T04:40:38","slug":"is-this-the-greatest-work-of-architecture-built-in-this-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/?p=223","title":{"rendered":"The Greatest Work of Architecture Built in this Century?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Upon hearing, in 1860, the suggestion that humankind was descended from apes\u00a0the wife of the Bishop of Worcester is reported<\/a> to have exclaimed: \u201cLet us hope it is not true, but if it is, let us pray it will not become generally known.\u201d \u00a0The same sentiment might apply to this\u00a0suggestion by Nicolai Ouroussoff, outgoing architecture critic of\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>, in a\u00a0piece in today’s edition<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0The subject in this instance is Beijing\u2019s new headquarters for the state-run China Central Television (CCTV), designed by Rem Koolhaas.<\/p>\n

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CCTV Building, Beijing (by Phillippe Ruault)<\/p><\/div>\n

Ouroussoff loves the building because of its irregularity and how it looks different depending on the angle at which it is observed.\u00a0 Plus, it\u2019s an architectural statement that challenges shopworn modernist ideas and the oppressive “Cartesian order” that has shaped the architecture of the last several centuries.\u00a0 It exposes the “conflicting energies” at work in society, and makes room for the “impurities and imperfections that make us human.” \u00a0Finally, it is a “beguiling metaphor” for China\u2019s \u201cheadlong race into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

New York Times<\/em> readers\u2014the over 150 who made this article the most commented upon of the day\u2014have a decidedly mixed reaction.\u00a0 Many admire, with Ouroussoff, the building as a “brilliant”, “breathtaking”, “magnificent”, and “exciting” intervention in Beijing\u2019s cityscape.\u00a0 Some see it as an enviable testament to China\u2019s spirit of experimentation and cosmopolitan ambitions, especially when contrasted to the current American malaise. More, however, choose to characterize it as “ugly”, “monstrous”, “oppressive” and the perfect embodiment of Western ideals\u2026especially since the architect himself is a Westerner.\u00a0 To the extent that the building imposes itself on the city it serves as an appropriate\u00a0architectural symbol for a state-run television outfit<\/a> and a society where expression is closely controlled<\/a>. \u00a0If this was Koolhaas\u2019 intention, say some, then he nailed it.\u00a0 Others suggest that the building says less about either China or the West and much more about Koolhaas (i.e., the starchitect\u2019s typically big ego).\u00a0 Personally, I liked the one commenter who saw in the building a Trojan Horse<\/a>, which was my first impression given the photographic perspective offered above.\u00a0 This certainly would be an apt metaphor for those keen to link the structure to the still-pervasive global influence of Western culture, creativity, and artistic expression. \u00a0Although several Times<\/em> commenters report that the resident Chinese don\u2019t think much of the building, dubbing it \u201cbig pants.\u201d<\/p>\n

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CCTV Building, Beijing (by Phillippe Ruault)<\/p><\/div>\n

What surprised me most, however, was Ouroussoff\u2019s nonchalance about aspects of the building that suggest an anti-social character. \u00a0In a departure from his other reviews<\/a> Ouroussoff writes dispassionately about the building’s repression of the most obvious signs of human scale and its massive concrete base that–in keeping with some other notable examples of new Beijing architecture<\/a>–severs it from the life of the city and, presumably, the street. Apparently these negatives are more than offset by the building’s largely open interiors (with the exception of the higher floors, which express a rigid corporate hierarchy) and provision of public exhibition, restaurant, and viewing areas. But on balance and given the first-hand testimony of those who\u2019ve seen it, I\u2019m not sure that Ouroussoff succeeds in convincing us that the building isn\u2019t, as he\u2018s written elsewhere<\/a>\u00a0about urban planning in China, a \u201cgrotesque parody of American post-war development.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Upon hearing, in 1860, the suggestion that humankind was descended from apes\u00a0the wife of the Bishop of Worcester is reported to have exclaimed: \u201cLet us hope it is not true, but if it is, let us pray it will not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-architecture"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1H2bI-3B","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.interculturalurbanism.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}