Oma In The Loop

摘要

Well, it finally got there. Plum in the middle of Beijing and just in time for the Olympics last month, the external cladding to OMA's CCTV HQ is complete. Looking like a Chinese puzzle and enclosing 473,000 m~2 of space, the principle was to merge all the disparate functions of television production into one three-dimensional loop. But if it's finished, how come it looks like someone's forgotten to join up the cladding lines all over the building, or at the very least had a hard night on the baijou before they decided to fix it? The answer is that there's a hangover of sorts involved, but not of the alcoholic variety. This one is the perilous-looking overhang that starts on the 36th floor and rises from 9 to 14 storeys as it links the building's two leaning towers.