Sign of the architectural times…

5d39/1234243306-3266397853_1b3592c196.jpg In 2009, one of the most eagerly anticipated buildings in the last 20 years was to be completed: The headquarters of CCTV in Beijing, designed by Rem Koolhaas and OMA. A striking, integral piece of that complex was the nearby Mandarin Oriental Hotel. Sadly, it looks like the hotel has almost completely burned down this morning.

As Reuters reports, the building caught on fire while locals were setting off fireworks for the Lantern Festival. (Slideshow of the fire here.) In addition to the hotel, the building was to include a theater, recording studios, and a movie theater, while the iconic building next door would include the TV station’s main broadcasting units. The latter looks unaffected, but no word yet on whether the fire will affect its opening schedule.

Thanks, Peter.
Update: Watch the burning building here.

Charles Mudede—who writes about film, books, music, and his life in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, the USA, and the UK for The Stranger—was born near a steel plant in Kwe Kwe, Zimbabwe. He has no memory...

22 replies on “Up In Smoke”

  6. wait a minute… why isn’t the fire melting the steel columns causing a “pancake” collapse? that doesn’t make sense… Surely an unfinished sky scraper would collapse at free fall speed minutes after its structure is exposed to intense heat… right?

  8. Amazing that the interwebs news cycle has reduced a story which, literally and proverbially, only caught fire 15 hours ago as old news.

    *dies a little on the inside*

  10. @6: you people are like cockroaches. Long after humanity has left earth to travel through the stars, and the sun has expanded into a red giant extinguishing all life, you’ll be circlejerking to your little theories…

  15. @6: My apologies if you’re trying to be ironic, but Jesus Christ, you people are fucking stupid. First of all, it is unlikely that any building fire would ever burn hot enough to “melt” steel. Secondly, steel structural members do not need to actually melt in order to fail–they only need to become ductile enough to become unable to resist the forces they’re supposed to carry.

    If you’re so goddamned interested in theorizing whether or not the WTC was destroyed as a part of some hoax, why don’t you read up on the fundamentals of strengths of materials or even just a few chapters on the history of fireproofing in cast-iron and steel supported skyscrapers?

    Otherwise, shut the fuck up.

  16. i think 6 was being “ironic”.

    if you’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing a ward skilling magnusson walk-thru of the WTC collapses, you would STFU. it had SCIENCE in it.

  18. It’s funny how the NYT website, the PI and Seattle Times don’t have any images of the disaster on their homepages. Apparently they are following the advise of the Propaganda Ministry: “No photos, no video clips, no in-depth reports.”

  19. So let me get this straight. They are holding a “Lantern Festival” where they fucking light good damn candles with FIRE during the WORST drought in China in a generation? What the Fuck are the moron Chinese thinking of holding a celebration with fire in a hot tinder box dense area?

    Are they completely fucking morons or only when it involves pushing their propoganda?

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