Hasta La Ideas

The China Central Television Headquarters in Beijing by architects OMA are now complete.

Top: photograph is by Iwan Baan
Above: photograph is by Philippe Ruault

The CCTV building comprises two towers that lean towards one another and are bridged at both the the top and bottom to form a distorted loop.

Above: photograph is by Iwan Baan

The building contains TV studios, offices and facilities for production and broadcasting, which will be put into use later this year.

The project was led by former OMA partner Ole Scheeren, who has since left the firm and set up his own practice. See his proposals for a skyscraper for Kuala Lumpur here.

OMA have unveiled a few new projects in the last month, including a performance institute in New York and an arts venue in Moscow. Rem Koolhaas gave Dezeen a quick introduction to that project, which you can watch here.

Here’s some more information from OMA:

CCTV Headquarters in Beijing, designed by OMA, completed

Today OMA participated in the official construction completion ceremony for the China Central Television (CCTV) Headquarters in Beijing, which will start to be used later this year. Designed by OMA as a reinvention of the skyscraper as a loop, construction on the building began in 2004. At approximately 473, 000m2, CCTV – accommodating TV studios, offices, broadcasting and production facilities – is OMA’s largest ever project and its first major building in China.

CCTV defies the skyscraper’s typical quest for ultimate height. Rising from a common platform, two towers lean towards each other and eventually merge in a perpendicular, 75-metre cantilever. The design combines the entire process of TV-making – formerly scattered in various locations across the city – into a loop of interconnected activities.

The structure of the CCTV Headquarters, and the forces at work within it, is visible on its façade: a web of diagonals that becomes dense in areas of greater stress, looser and more open in areas requiring less support. The façade itself becomes a visual manifestation of the building’s structure.

Rem Koolhaas commented: “I am very happy, after years of intense collaboration, that the CCTV building will soon begin to perform its role in the way it is intended.”

The CCTV project was led by OMA / Rem Koolhaas, former OMA partner Ole Scheeren (until 2010), OMA partner David Gianotten and project manager Dongmei Yao in close collaboration with partners Shohei Shigematsu, Ellen van Loon and Victor van der Chijs. The design team consisted of project architects Anu Leinonen, Charles Berman and Adrianne Fisher together with a team of over 100 architects from OMA.

The structural and MEP design was provided by Cecil Balmond and Arup, while ECADI (East China Architectural Design & Research Institute) functioned as the Local Design Institute. Design Consultants included Front INC, Inside/Outside, DHV, DMJMH+N, Lerch Bates & Associates, LPA, Sandy Brown Associates and Romano Gatland NY.

Rather than design a run-of-the-mill skyscraper for a new hotel in Xian, China, architects 3Gatti decided to put lots of smaller buildings on a gigantic set of shelves.

Houses and apartment blocks on the lower levels of the Shelf Hotel will contain hotel suites.

Office blocks will be placed nearer the top.

Two shelves will be omitted from the lower part of the tower, creating an elevated garden including a courtyard surrounded by restaurants.

The project is currently awaiting approval from the local authority.

Check out a hotel in the Netherlands that looks like a pile of houses here.

We’ve featured a few projects by Rome and Shanghai firm 3Gatti Architecture Studio – see them here.

Here’s some more explanation from 3Gatti Architecture Studio:

Shelf Hotel

This project is intended to be the the first contemporary building in the contemporary Xian; want to be an architecture in open dialogue with the rest of the world in a multicultural international architectural language and at the same time strongly attached to the Xian and Chinese traditions.

One main purpose of this design is to follow the needs of different inhabitant without loosing the power of a strong landmark building in the cityscape.

In the common buildings the design is a dam imposed by the architect to the mutating needs of the people and of the developing history of the city. This building wants to be an open matrix to be filled during time with the mutating expectations from a growing culture and society.This matrix will be the more expensive part of the building that of course is the structure, the only element very difficult to mutate during time.

The objects that will fill the matrix will be built following the different owners identities, functions and real estate needs in a more free and low cost construction methods.

Working 7 years as an architect in China I learned that the construction here follow very strictly and spontaneously the flow of economy without many constrains from regulations, planners and building managements.

Usually architects built objects where the integrity and personality is made by the beauty of the exterior shape and material, shapes and material that have to stay clean and unchanged till the end of the building life. That’s maybe possible in a country where the managements and regulations are very strict and conservative and where probably the economy is very slow creating no development acceleration.

Is not the case of China. Here all architects get frustrated because they can make pictures to their beautiful creations only in the first month life of the building, after that inhabitants start to put unwanted attachments to the building: advertising signs, volume extensions, additional decorations and other additions following their own living or business needs and personalities.

Our design want to make of this dynamic attitude of Chinese culture the real power of the building facade; so that every change during time will give not less but more beauty to the building look and overall concept.

Till the sixties it always have been a dream for architects to create an highrise building where to show the identities and personalities of each inhabitant instead of building an anonymous facade to represent the hundreds of people and business going on inside the building. This can be the right opportunity to realize this dream emphasizing the beauty of the collage aesthetics. If this was intended to be a design for our parents probably was better to empathize the deep meaning of a unique culture making and object with an unambiguous hidden spirit to be discovered by research and abnegation.

But this actually is a design oriented to the future and to the next generation like all works of responsible architects should be. Observing young people you will notice that they are looking for a life with a simultaneity of stimuli, they are used to live in an interactive environment with many short experiences instead of a unique deep unequivocal one. They are moving in masses naively, led by a revolutionary instinct towards the collective creation and without regards for personal creativity, I’m sure they are the true prophets, those who will guide us towards an amazing future.

This is a design for them, its a way to attract them speaking their own language. The design will show them a variety of different spaces, different facades, different cultural identities, different experiences. But instead of attracting them in the chaos of the city with its inhuman spaces, we will bring them in a natural and peaceful variety of environments where to learn about themselves, their own culture and the culture from their peers around the world. This building wants to represent their spirit of collective creation and the facade will literally represent this continuous and interactive flow of creations. This building wants to represent their spirit of collective creation and the facade will literally represent this continuous and interactive flow of creations.

One of the biggest problems to solve in this design was how to get rid of the building shadow on the neighbor residence buildings. Chinese regulation is very strict on this and don’t allow more than certain amount of shadow time cover every day. Our building is 100 meters tall and quite large. Thanks to software analysis we discover the critical point to be not too far from the building base where the shadow actually is not moving but is almost permanent all day long. We spontaneously solved this problem by rising the upper part of the volume so that the sun can reach exactly the critical area in need for more light. In this way we opened an opportunity for a large garden to be placed inside this forced gap. This garden will be the heart of the hotel together with the top roof garden where we placed a Chinese courtyard residence traditional typology (siheyuan).

Those green opportunities will be the location for special function related with the exhibition and research about Chinese traditional cultural activities such as calligraphy, tea and taiji together with Buddhist meditation and learning areas. Will be also the place where to grow vegetable and other special food in green houses and water pools.

Restaurants and lounge spaces will be also placed in those green areas and will be visible from the skylights and transparent floors of the below and upper hotel rooms. The green will be located in small amount in each double floor of the highrise, especially in the gaps between the object/houses that fills the slabs matrix structure.

The structure will be composed of pillars and inverted slabs every two floors. In this way is possible to take use of the space between the beams for different purpose like for storage spaces, soil for trees and green areas, pools, mechanical equipment and other functions adaptable to the space under the floor surface.

Most of the houses actually will not be completely autonomous volumes but will be aggregate together and divided only by apparent front gaps so not to waste habitable square meters.

In the ground floor the houses volumes will extend to the front area creating small plazas together with green walls of bamboo. Those will be small spaces in human scale so to be able to make people enjoy open air restaurant areas or outdoor activities.

We believe in this way to create a sustainable project that can last during the years developing its spirit from the ancient Chinese traditions to the future inevitable global culture.

Architecture firm: 3GATTI
Chief architect: Francesco Gatti
Project manager: Borja Gómez
Collaborators: Tyler Johnson, Karen Tang, John Jiang, Lisa Liu
Structural engineer: Jun Gang Sun
Client: Renhe Estate (Shaanxi Weizhi Group)
Location: Keji Road, Gaoxin district, Xian, China
Programme: Five star Hotel, Retail, Restaurants, Spa, Gym, Office, Parking, Green Park
Total area: 50,000 m²
Design period: December 2011

Materials: steel and reinforced concrete structure, bamboo, wood, recycled local stones, recycled gray bricks, recycled terracotta bricks, corrugated steel, glass

Chinese architects Neri&Hu have completed this private member’s club in Beijing.

A black entrance tunnel leads visitors up towards a reception two storeys above, which open out onto the double-height hall and exhibition gallery that are overlooked from the floors above.

From here, members can also visit a tearoom where drawers cover the walls, a room dedicated to wine-tasting or a library.

Colour palettes graduate from white to light and dark shades of brown, which includes whitewashed oak, smoked oak and teak for the ceilings, walls and floors.

A courtyard lounge occupies the top floor of the building, where openings in the roof exposed certain areas to the elements.

This year Neri&Hu were announced overall winners at the Inside Awards for their conversion of an army headquarters into a hotel.

See the project here and watch our interview with Lyndon Neri here.

Photography is by Shen Zhonghai.

Here’s some more text from the architects:

YINGJIA CLUB at Vanke Beijing
Sales Club & Corporate VIP Lounge
Beijing. China

Located inside Vanke Beijing’s headquarters, the Yingjia Club is a new five-story multi-purpose VIP sales club built into the client’s existing office complex.

Responding to Vanke’s desire for a prominent facade identity and an interior program that is diverse yet flexible in the long term, Neri&Hu created a new exterior and maximized the internal multi-story experience with a mixture of intimate and public spaces interconnected through the different floors via new openings and a continuously winding staircase linking all the rooms.

Taking inspiration from Beijing’s traditional courtyard house, the architectural concept is about connecting the layered private and public spaces in both plan and section with paths and views that encourage visitors to explore and find their own moments of discoveries in between.

The exterior complements the busy interior with one cohesive screen box, uniting the different view openings and also providing a range of porosity relative to the programs inside through different louver densities.

Experientially, the progression into and up the floors gets brighter, lighter, and wider through the gradually changing material palette and quality of light.

Starting from the first floor, the black tunnel entrance evokes a sense of mysterious exclusivity that hints at revealing more just beyond the elongated shades of shadows.

As one enters through and arrives at the reception in the third floor, the layered experience begins to introduce itself, with the contrasting sequences of the compressed and expansive, private and public, black and white, and sky and earth unraveling with each step forward.

Walking along the cavernous, quiet corridors, one can always catch a glimpse of or enter directly into the two main, double-height spaces, the bright receiving hall and exhibition gallery.

From these big public spaces, one can also see through various rooms in the different levels and further into the sky above through overlapping frames of views and skylights, luring the curiosity deeper with the visual connection.

In the receiving hall in particular, a continuous stair path orchestrates the link throughout the entire space, first rising high from the third floor, next leading to the more personal experiences in the fourth floor (tea room, library, wine tasting room), then spiraling up to the top floor through the indoor and semi-outdoor lounges and bars, and finally arriving at complete openness into nature, clear sky, and views of Beijing at the outdoor viewing platform.

As visitors transition between the different rooms, they will interchangeably pass through the different public spaces, invited for gatherings in the open, meditated thoughts in solitude, rest in undisturbed tranquility, or other unexpected meetings with people.

From the different levels, platforms, atriums, windows, skylights, doorways, and reflections along the explorations, everyone will discover their own moments in the course of their journey.

Ground floor – click above for larger image

Third floor – click above for larger image

Fifth floor – click above for larger image

Click above for larger image

Construction has started on an art museum with four overlapping peaks that Foster + Partners have designed for Datong, China.

The Datong Art Museum will be one of four new buildings at the cultural plaza and will be sunken into the ground.

Corten steel will create a roof that weathers over time, while a series of skylights will direct strips of natural light into the galleries within.

See more projects by Foster + Partners here.

Here’s the full press release from Foster + Partners:

New museum under construction in Datong, China

Construction is underway at Datong Art Museum – China’s ‘Museum of the 21st Century’. The museum will open in 2013 to represent China in the ‘Beyond the Building’ Basel Art international tour.

The 32,000-square-metre venue is one of four major new buildings within Datong New City’s cultural plaza. Its centrepiece is the Grand Gallery, a heroically scaled, top-lit exhibition space measuring 37 metres high and spanning almost 80 metres, in which artists will be commissioned to create large-scale works of art.

Externally, the building’s form is conceived as an erupted landscape. The entire museum is sunk into the ground with only the peaks of the roof visible at ground level. The roof is clad in earth-toned Corten steel, which will weather naturally over time. The building relates in scale to the three other cultural buildings in the group, balancing the overall composition of the masterplan while maximising the internal volume of the Grand Gallery.

The roof is composed of four interconnected pyramids, which increase in height and fan outwards towards the four corners of the cultural plaza. A clerestory between each volume creates a dynamic play of light and shade internally, while illuminating the building from within to create a beacon for the new cultural quarter at night. Visitors approach via a gentle ramp and stair, which are integrated with the sunken plaza to create an informal amphitheatre. The arrival sequence culminates in a dramatic overview of the Grand Gallery.

The interior is designed to be highly flexible to accommodate a changing programme of displays. The Grand Gallery is arranged over a single level, which can be subdivided to create individual exhibition spaces, and the services are fully integrated with the structure. The children’s gallery, group entrance lobby, café, restaurant and support spaces are arranged around sunken courtyards to draw in daylight.

The building’s efficient passive design responds to Datong’s climate. High-level skylights take advantage of the building’s north and north-west orientation, using natural light to aid orientation while minimising solar gain and ensuring the optimum environment for the works of art. A high-performance enclosure further reduces energy use. The roof, which accounts for 70 per cent of the exposed surface area, is insulated to twice building code requirements and, with just 10 per cent glazing, maintenance requirements are also minimised.

Luke Fox, a senior partner at Foster + Partners:
“We are delighted to reveal designs for the new museum and look forward to working with the city to take the project to the next stage. When complete, Datong’s new quarter will be the centre of the city’s cultural life, with the new museum as its ‘urban room’ – a dynamic space, open to everyone to meet and enjoy its different displays and activities.”

Intimacy and illusion in a range of contemporary photography seen at the show

Representing 120 galleries from 16 countries, the spring Art Paris Art Fair offers a prime opportunity to observe the latest tendencies in the modern and contemporary art markets. This year we found particular attention paid to photography, unveiling the intriguing progress of the exploration of intimacy.

The images that stood out to us traced a progression from a series of building facades taken in 2007 to today’s more revelatory shots exposing the private lives of those that inhabit such spaces. Some artists delved even deeper into the idea of home documentation with installations set up to peep through a keyhole.

Dutch photographer Erwin Olaf has built an enclosed booth, inviting visitors to sit on the chair in front of closed doors and look into the keyhole. As part of the PHPA 2011 project (Prix photo d’hôtel photo d’auteur—Hotel photos awards), Elene Usdin displayed the sketches she shot in hotel rooms through a peephole in the door of room 18 constructed for the exhibit.

As the camera pierces a sense of intimacy with the keyhole device, the practice of portraiture heads in the opposite direction as pictures seem to zoom in on the face, often depicting the subject blurred, heavily made up or disguised.

Korean artist Byung-Hun Min is gaining fame with his gray-tone “vanishing” portraits, questioning the ephemeral process of photography as well as the silence and simplicity characteristic of his culture.

Similarly focused on disappearing landscapes and backgrounds is the politically engaged series “Hide in the City” by the Chinese photographer Liu Bolin. Bolin uses his body as a medium of expression as he blends into the environment like a chameleon.

At the Italian Fabbrica Eos Gallery, Giuseppe Mastromatteo‘s photo series “Indepensense 2012” plays on truth and distortion by featuring nude bodies unnaturally intertwined to create vignettes opposing racial and cultural norms. Ruggero Rosfer & Shaokun also shakes up tradition by positing a new universal language that Eastern and Western worlds can share, both geographically and culturally, through the arts.

In a reverse approach from explicitly showing intimacy, the landscape itself becomes an intimate subject in a magical series by photographer Markus Henttonen. His photo of decorated trees in Manhattan marks a highlight in his recent body of work exploring relations between cities and their inhabitants.

Gerard Traquandi‘s beautifully dark photos feature organic details of twisted branches, bushwoods and transparent petals like nighttime-induced hallucinations. Their magical appeal is obtained by the technique of brushing resin pigments and wax into the photo, imprinting a photosensitive sheet.

The diptych and triptych style marked another recurring theme of this show. These two- or three-panel pictures result in a panoramic view responding to each other by echoing patterns and forcing the viewer to make the effort to mentally recompose the picture. This technique is brilliantly used by American artist Stephan Crasneanscki—founder of the soundwalk project—in his thoughtful landscapes like “The Woods of Schwarzwald—Martin Heidegger”.

The 2012 World Press third prize winner Alexander Gronsky uses the diptych technique systematically in “Mental Landscapes”, an image enhanced by the dramatic dimensions of a military show in China. Another piece depicts mice spread on rocks in some misty military-occupied scenery, emphasizing contrast while using the same range of colors.

The Parisian-based La Galerie Particulière features diptych and triptych photography by David Hilliard, an artist who uses the technique to tell personal stories in the form of a diary made of sequential imagery. Also included are a series of diptychs by Anne-Lise Broyer that are reminiscent of illustrations in a book, and the Czech Republic’s Inda Gallery presentation of works by Marta Czene, whose stories flow from a similar perspective.

By using a combination of optical illusions and strategic photography, George Rousse creates graphic signs and geometric images within photographs. By playing visual games, his photos appear to feature huge colored frames and objects within the landscapes he shoots, producing a dizzying effect.

For more information about the 2102 Art Paris Art Fair including comprehensive artists and gallery lists and informative videos check Art Paris Art Fair online.