Absurdity, Allegory and China

Earlier this week while China was (and still is) doing Copenhagen, climate change and carbon chits, Beijing and Tianjin were muffled in a thick toxic fog that held the wintry coal-smoky air low to the ground to mix with the normal, everyday dose of vehicular and factory air pollution. If the air were a hospital [...]

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The CCTV HQ project & site-specific graffiti. December 9, 2009 4:16 PM Larger version here.

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Beijing 3:45 PM, December 9, 2009 Larger version here.

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Warning: imagined full-frontal content below In my last post I wrote about the pornographic flap over the CCTV Headquarters complex, the project that continues to knot a lot of knickers. And there is no sign that it’s about to let up. It has become the piñata that won’t stop giving: whack it again and it [...]

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An old joke: first day in prison a young inmate sits silently in the cafeteria spooning his gruel. The rule for all meals is a firm ‘no talking.’ As everyone quietly slops it in a guy jumps up and yells, “Fifty-six!” and quickly retakes his seat. Everyone breaks into hysterical laughter (gruel spraying through the [...]

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This one almost got by me. (Thanks to MMG for bringing it to my attention.) Rem Koolhaas was featured in the Wall Street Journal last month in a piece entitled The Sky’s No Longer the Limit, concerning architecture and the the end of this latest golden age as major building projects throughout the world have [...]

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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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Often when I take photos I don’t get around to looking at them for a while. I find I need a bit of distance between shooting and looking at what’s been shot in order to get a clearer perspective on what is good and what is not. So, last night I found this one from [...]

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Here are several b&w photos of the TVCC (Mandarin Oriental Beijing) and the CCTV HQ Building taken in the late afternoon on New Year’s Day, January 26, 2009. Click photos for larger versions More photos: Rudenoon Photostream CCTV HQ Photos Project

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