Absurdity, Allegory and China

The Kingdom from another angle.

Absurdity, Allegory and China header image 4

Always More Rumors

August 11th, 2010 · No Comments

The CCTV Building project has been rife with rumors since before the first hole was dug, and the latest one (via niubi at Twitter) was spotted on Weibao, a Chinese microblogging service. The rough translation (and I stress “rough”) is “Heard that my foolish masters’ big underpants scorched little brother [TVCC] must be demolished tomorrow, [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Beijing · CCTV · CCTV fire · Koolhaas · architecture

Google, Facebook, VPNs and Moving

June 3rd, 2010 · No Comments

I have just finished reading Googled by Ken Auletta, and I followed it up with James Fallows’ Atlantic Monthly piece, How to Save the News. A lot of good reading here, as well as a much deeper explanation of who and what Google is and what it appears they are doing, though it becomes a [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: CCTV · Google · photo

A Few More of the CCTV Project (color)

April 28th, 2010 · No Comments

Here are some photos of the CCTV in color, all taken in the late afternoon/early evening, April 23, 2010

[Read more →]

Tags: Beijing · CCTV · TVCC · architecture · photo

More CCTV Building Project Photos

April 27th, 2010 · 2 Comments

Photos of the continuing project. (click for bigger pic)

[Read more →]

Tags: Beijing · CCTV · TVCC · architecture · photo

Civilized Chaoyang II

April 26th, 2010 · 1 Comment

(This post began as a comment in response to comments to my previous post, Civilized Chaoyang: What Was It Before?. It “grew” into this. I could post another photographic example of the Civilized Chaoyang Campaign, but I won’t. Even I’d consider that as “piling on.” The “new grads” alludes to one of the comments, by [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: CCTV · language

Collaborate

October 25th, 2008 · No Comments

The sculpture at the east end of the Kerry Centre across the Third Ring Rd. from the CCTV Building is a piece by Sun Yu Li, a Singaporean artist whose website can be found here. I had referred to this piece in an earlier blog post as the “recently installed yin yang-ish sculpture that allows [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Beijing · CCTV

Unfurling Cliché

August 15th, 2008 · 2 Comments

Last March I wrote a post anticipating the Olympic protests in support of a ‘free’ Tibet. Nothing prescient, mind you; anyone with a tooth in their head, and a lot of folks without, could have anticipated attempts at extreme displays. If your plan is to make a scene, I am asking you to review your [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Beijing · CCTV · Olympics · billboards · protests · reporting

More CCTV Minutiae

August 13th, 2008 · 1 Comment

In early June I went to the CCTV Bldg. to have a look and what I found cocked my brow a few degrees: on the roof of the northwest tower, Tower 1, there was a helipad, a circular affair that oddly took the edge off the well-defined linear profile. A circle of all things! As [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Beijing · CCTV · architecture

Taotie Anyone?

August 11th, 2008 · 4 Comments

I’ve just arrived back in Tianjin from four days in Beijing, and there’s so much to talk about I hardly know where to begin. Photos of the CCTV Headquarters Building seems to be as good as place as any while I collect my thoughts. There’s the bullet train from Tianjin to Beijing (and vice versa, [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: Beijing · Bush · Olympics · architecture · basketball