Absurdity, Allegory and China

My love-hate relationship with the CCTV Headquarters complex continues, On February 20, 2008 the China Daily published an interview with Ole Scheeren, the architect heading up this project, and it is worth a look. The newspaper (it’s difficult to call a propaganda daily a newspaper, but this sort of sloppy “rectification of names” is the natural fallout when empires try to micromanage information: Murdoch, CCP, the Bush White House, etc.) printed several photos that accompanied the article, one of which was taken within the last couple of weeks showing the overhanging beak fully joined at the lower levels. The caption beneath the photo states, “Towers combine at the top in cantilevered headquarters for management.” This has been lifted nearly verbatim from OMA’s CCTV HQ webpage, which is ground I’ve already covered earlier this month, I know. But it is curious to see that the two sides in this construction partnership are still viewing things fundamentally differently. In the interview Mr. Scheeren states:

Also, the top of the building is no longer occupied by the senior management, but actually accessible to the entire staff in a staff forum.

In the very next paragraph Mr. Scheeren makes much of the symbolic deconstructing of the hierarchy implicit in the skyscraper:

So all these spaces have been very strategically delegated to avoid the conventional, hierarchical systems inherent in so many buildings - especially the skyscraper, with its pure verticality which seems to expel (sic?) a very banal construct of hierarchy where the top obviously, is the best and the bottom, the worst.

The China Daily, a vital organ of the CCP’s body propaganda, is either not hearing Mr. Scheeren or allowing him this public delusion, knowing full well that the best seats in the house go to those who own, not hold, the reins. And if they know anything, they know in the deepest, darkest chambers of their hearts that in a system where everything rolls downhill, it is best to pacify those you need until they are no longer needed.

There are at least a few possibilities happening here: Mr. Scheeren is being snowed by the client; Mr. Scheeren knows the score but can’t bear to gag it out in public; or the China Daily is not doing their homework. In China, I can see that all three are possibly at work here, as odd as that may seem. It’s that ‘skinning the cat’ all over again: some start with the neck, others with the abdomen, and some begin by first chopping off the feet. There’s more than one way to do almost anything, from skinning a cat to telling the same story.

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