Absurdity, Allegory and China

Alex Pasternack has a piece on the CCTV fire at Far East Economic Review, entitled Beijing’s Trial By Fire. There is an accompanying soundslides picture presentation, A CCTV Building Burns to a Crisp. Some of the photos from the video were taken by my daughter, Moira, who happens to live within a five-minute walk of [...]

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I finally went to Beijing at the end of this past week (March 12 & 13, 2009) and, unsurprisingly, spent some time around the East Third Ring Rd. photographing the CCTV project. I’d received a phone call a week or two ago to tell me that a high fence was being erected around the spectacular [...]

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According to the buzz on Twitter – niubi – it appears as if a more accurate assessment of the CCTV fire, which destroyed the Television Cultural Center (TVCC), has been reported on Caijing.com.cn magazine (subscription-based in Chinese, not English). According to niubi, who is a wealth of information on all things China, “1 bldg structurally [...]

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From Caijing Online, some thoughts on the fire at the TVCC. Fire Report Issued by CCTV The TV station’s report found that the fire was limited to the insulation under the titanium alloy, damaging only the surface of the high-rise. … A Chinese architecture expert, however, doubted some details in the report, saying, “It is [...]

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What looks clear from the post-fire photos is that the basic structural shape of the TVCC building does not appear to have been altered at all. The lines look to be consistent with the pre-fire lines, though what it looks like inside is still, for me, a guess. I don’t believe that there is any [...]

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Here is a video shot by my daughter, Moira, while she and I were speaking on the phone – me in Tianjin, she just west of the Third Ring Rd. – while the Television Culture Center (TVCC) went up in fire and smoke. She mentions on the vid that the building appears to be in [...]

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