Rem Koolhaas, part of CCTV building in Beijing redesigned by fire

TZz, Architect's Rem Koolhaas’s, TVCC building which is part of the CCTV tower, called the "giant underpants", which is ugly and brutal, burned down. It is the type of Architecture which makes city's unpleasant there inhabitants, egoistic, reckless, ignorant and perverts the social live of citizens stuffed between such ugly buildings. It provides home for a corrupted television system, the television authority headquarters for a nation wide brain dump.

I am not telling here, that the euro-us centric television is better off, they are delivering a similar brain dump just differently designed, but what they have internally a stricter health and safety policy. That CCTV employes are now guilty setting off some pyro and set the whole thing on fire, is strange and bizarre. For a moment I thought in finance crisis times, the insurance provides now the necessary cash for finishing the big building, but a friend told me that they have enough money. I just wonder why the fire sprinkle system did not went on, maybe because there was no water in the system?

Now at least a part has been redesigned by fire. I do not like these type of architects, particular the structures Rem Koolhaas’s makes, they are all not build for live quality they are build out of the ignorant desire to build the weirdest building. His temporary design in London of the Serpentine Pavilion Gallery was typical, sitting on plastic cubes where your bud sweats after 10 minutes, no noise reduction, cheap trash material, its decoration without substance, it's depro design.

Here some other comments: Wang Xiaofeng a popular blogger noted the irony of CCTV employees accidentally creating one of the biggest stories of the year and then failing to cover it. “They didn’t feel the urgency to report the news even though the fire was up to their eyebrows,”. “In this case of breaking news, the official media has been defeated by the citizen media.”

Foxshuo, the rebuilding effort, would mean more jobs for unemployed migrants, more money spent on construction materials and a boost to the ailing economy. Businesses will have new customers and the government officials will have new opportunities to take bribes,”. “To make up the loss, the taxpayers will pay more and the GDP will go up and society will move forward in harmony”. We say - Yin Yang - Hallelujah - Inshallah.

On the scene: a lot of people joined the late night camp fire, with there best cameras, best phones and devises, some foreigners, British, brought also beer, the atmosphere was relaxed and full of competing ring tones, waiting for the collapse of the building. Every small explosion caused the public to moan, every hobby photographer in camouflage gear, ready to rumble was on the street, every video cam was performed seriously, some Dutch locals pretended to do there jobs, French girls tried to be very cool, and everyone one was photographing everyone. Myself around the neck the new Canon 5D mark II with the wrong lens in the middle of this confusion. Cordone after cordon of very young Chinese soldiers tried to look dangerous, and beside the blistering building, the full moon, street light the dark of the night was accelerated by hundreds of flashing red-blue light cars of officials speeding up and down the streets, pretending that they know what they do. This was the end of Chinese Lunar New Year 2009. Definitly CCTV had the largest bonfire in town. Thankfully the building did not collaps and next day, the young soldiers have been upgraded with some higher ranks, looking now more professional out of there uniforms.

Chines whispers say: bad karma was in the game, the people living in that block have been forced with all kinds of ways to move out, so that Mr. Koolhaas has a free base to plan for. I know its a bit populistic this accusation. Yes I know, how should Mr. Koolhaas know about all of this and by the way his job is to be architect and not a social worker. One world one dream.

The sound and smell of firecrackers, believed to attract wealth and clear the threshold of evil spirits.

Via Gizmodo by Elaine Chow,: China cultural fun fact: People here love giving nicknames to buildings. With all the avante-garde architecture around, sometimes the nicknames are less than complimentary. The new CCTV building is now trying hard to not be known as “Hemorrhoids.” The China Central Television headquarters is a 6.45 million square foot complex that involves twin leaning towers connected by two massive sections in midair. Designed by Rem Koolhaas, it's an amazing feat of engineering and architecture. But when CCTV proposed that they call it Zhichuang (meaning Knowledge Window), Chinese netizens saw its homophone, “Hemorrhoids.” CCTV is now scrambling to find a different nickname to call the building, and have bandied about things like “Harmonious Gate,” “New Angle” or “Future Window.” Chinese netizens, always happy to help out, have offered their suggestions of "Big Underpants," “Wild Man,” and “Slanting Stride.”