中国のCCTV本社ビルの解説から始まる、オランダの建築家、レム・コールハースの紹介（英文）

The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

This is China Central Television HQ in Beijing, the world's first "looped" skyscraper. Some say it's the greatest building of the 21st century, and others, including Xi Jinping, have called it weird. Either way, CCTV HQ has (accidentally) inspired an architectural revolution... pic.twitter.com/bYknMVtift

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

China Central Television (CCTV) were based in this building, now the China Media Group Headquarters, built in the 1980s. It is, by all accounts, an entirely ordinary 20th century skyscraper. But in the early 2000s CCTV decided they needed a new, purpose-built headquarters... pic.twitter.com/XsTDSsrRiv

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

And so they turned to the Dutch architect and theorist Rem Koolhaas, who founded the international architectural firm OMA in 1975, to design it. Koolhaas, depending on who you ask, is either a modern genius or the supervillain of contemporary architecture. pic.twitter.com/CHqIet0rNN

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Some of Koolhaas' other projects before and since include the Dee and Charles Wyly Theater in Dallas and a building in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, called De Rotterdam. pic.twitter.com/UZo3tcs6Vy

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Koolhaas is one of, if not the, most influential architects of recent decades. He has won the Pritzker Prize (the most prestigious architectural award in the world) and become something of a celebrity architect. What are his architectural theories and ideas? pic.twitter.com/YBoDk15uo1

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Well, Koolhaas is an elusive theorist. As he said: "There is an enormous, deliberate, and - I think - healthy discrepancy between what I write and what I do." His aim is "to keep thinking about what architecture can be, in whatever form" — to be revolutionary is the goal.

The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Koolhaas is also an influential urban theorist, and he had the chance to put his ideas into practice with "Euralille", a major new business district in the French city of Lille, commissioned in the late 1980s. pic.twitter.com/GJiAKpjKq0

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

With the CCTV HQ, Koolhaas certainly put into practice something he once wrote in a book called S,M,L,XL. "I like thinking big. I always have. To me it's very simple: if you're going to be thinking anyway, you might as well think big." pic.twitter.com/LdcBcvS4S3

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Koolhaas has stated that it was a building which could only have resulted from international co-operation: the concept was a European one, he said, and the means and will to build it were Chinese. Well, construction started in 2004, as the two towers slowly rose in unison... pic.twitter.com/6WWYjrRYBZ

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

And then work on the cantilevered section began, by far the biggest challenge facing Arup, the firm hired to construct the tower. This part of CCTV HQ, called "the overhang" by Koolhaas, is suspended nearly 200 metres above the ground and is itself 15 storeys tall. pic.twitter.com/0AILDI8LCA

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Upon completion in 2012 it became one of the tallest buildings in Beijing (now ninth in that list) at nearly 250 metres tall. A new, startling, and wholly unique addition to the skyline of one of the world's major cities; a building through which you can even see the sunset. pic.twitter.com/Taw5fkfnAG

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Was it a success? Well, from an engineering point of view this was an unqualified triumph; the CCTV HQ looks impossible from every single angle. There have been a huge number of highly ambitious megastructures in recent decades, but nothing quite like this. pic.twitter.com/l5PIq4U9ZY

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

And yet CCTV HQ strikes many people as a sort of high-tech monolithic edifice, imposing and futuristic (in the dystopian sense), more suited to Blade Runner films than real life. Although it does have a rather sardonic local nickname — Big Pants — in reference to its shape. pic.twitter.com/bMpU5tfds1

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Many architects and critics quickly declared it the greatest building of the 21st century, both because of its extraordinary engineering and the way it reconceptualised the skyscraper. Here was a tall tower taken apart and reassembled into something entirely new — a revolution. pic.twitter.com/skWqXwrbnK

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

But in 2014 Xi Jinping called for an end to the "weird architecture" taking over China. CCTV HQ is just one of many buildings he referred to, wherein developers had "lost themselves in the tide of market economy" and prioritised commercial gain over artistic and moral value. pic.twitter.com/lVrVNcWgC6

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Xi Jinping went on to say: "Fine art works should be like sunshine from the blue sky and the breeze in spring that will inspire minds, warm hearts, cultivate taste and clean up undesirable work styles." Was his criticism fair? pic.twitter.com/Ms1iMcoQnI

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Koolhaas responded: "[CCTV HQ is] a building that introduces new ways of conceptualising, liberating and realising structure that did not exist in China before, and of which I'm sure Chinese culture and Chinese architecture will benefit." It seemingly had the opposite effect. pic.twitter.com/yiJz2oa7kj

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

But Xi Jinping's accusation of "immoral" design wasn't reactionary. Koolhaas himself said, "bigness is ultimate architecture. Through size alone such buildings enter an amoral domain, beyond good or bad." CCTV HQ, then, was Koolhaas' vision of ultimate, amoral architecture. pic.twitter.com/02nEe1mgT1

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

In 2016 China's State Council released new urban planning guidelines which forbade "oversized, xenocentric, weird" buildings and "bizarre architecture that is not economical, function, aesthetically pleasing or environmentally friendly." No more "attention-grabbing" projects. pic.twitter.com/RiBDZOmGBh

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The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

These guidelines were followed in 2021 with a directive from the National Development and Reform Commission which banned "ugly architecture" in favour of buildings "suitable, economic, green and pleasing to the eye." Koolhaas' revolution was not the one he intended to inspire.

The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor

Triumph or tragedy? Modern masterpiece or contemporary catastrophe? CCTV HQ has divided opinion since its completion and no doubt will continue to do so for decades. There's nothing else quite like it, and there might never be anything like it again, for good or for bad... pic.twitter.com/9dPMMvpAOD

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mario_ @Infinite_Jest__

@culturaltutor Looks straight out of Blade Runner.

dotset @mdotset

@culturaltutor 裤衩儿