February 9, 2009
Koolhaas’s CCTV Catches Fire
A hotel tower in the landmark Beijing complex goes up in flames.
The architecture world’s eyes are trained this morning on Beijing, where a hotel tower in Rem Koolhaas’s massive Central China Television (CCTV) complex went up in flames, the New York Times reports. The 40-story Mandarin Oriental Hotel, scheduled for completion this year, might have caught fire during the citywide fireworks displays celebrating the lunar new year. Videos from bystanders are already being posted on YouTube (like the one shown here), but there’s no word yet on injuries or the full extent of the damage. Early reports suggest that the main building, China Central Television’s monumental headquarters, unveiled last summer as an Olympics showpiece, is so far unscathed.