China Central Television Headquarters 中央电视台总部大楼

A lot of the places I have visited in China were centuries old places, or at least they look like that have been there for at least a hundred years old. Since China has opened up to the world, it has changed tremendously. A lot of western concepts have flowed in including other aspects of culture such as architecture and art. Western influenced architecture particularly modern architecture are probably one of the most obvious influences in modern Chinese society. A large part of cityscape of China has changed and it has morphed into something more of sometimes even surpassing Western cities. Perhaps there wasn’t anything more striking that memorable structures in the city than the China Central Television Headquarters or CCTV Headquarters.

For people who have cable, CCTV is China’s news arm and controls large if not all of Chinese media. Most channels are in Chinese but there is at least one English language channel of course with reports coming from the Chinese viewpoint. Such an important organization surely deserves a home befitting of its stature. The China Central Television Headquarters has perhaps one of the most bizarre and yet striking designs I have even seen. I don’t even know how to describe its shape, this perhaps one of those times where pictures speak louder than words. One of the engineering feats of this structure was the large corner structure which dangles without any support. Much has been documented about this structure and it was deemed to be structurally sound. This portion was made to be the lightest and a lot of support was built into lifting this part of the building.

It was difficult to take a photo of the building since it was too huge from below and not nice with all the cars in the way. I have yet to get a proper photo of the place since the previous year I was there there seemed to be some construction going on. Now here I am and the construction is still ongoing. Perhaps they don’t want visitors?

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