Beijing is seeing the completion of two high-profile, record-setting skyscrapers this fall: while the Zaha Hadid Architects-designed Leeza SOHO Tower with its 623-foot-tall, full-height atrium (the world's tallest) will open to the public in November, the 1,732-foot supertall CITIC Tower already opened this week and officially took the crown as the city's new tallest building.
"CITIC Tower’s design draws inspiration from the 'zun', a ritual vessel originating in Bronze Age China," explains the project description from the architects behind the structure's design, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates.
"In profile, the tower abstracts and refines the zun’s vase-like form, balancing composition and articulation with structural requirements and leasing depth needs. In plan, the building is square with rounded corners; its width transforms vertically from its 78-meter-wide base to its 54-meter-wide 'waist' to its 69-meter-wide top. Broader at its base than its crown, the tower combines its iconography with infrastructure that supports the building’s integrity in China’s greatest seismic zone."
At a height of 528 meters, CITIC Tower now ranks as the fourth tallest building in China and the eighth tallest worldwide.
For KPF, it's another completed tower in its growing portfolio of supertalls, which includes 5 of the 11 tallest buildings in the world: the Ping An Finance Centre in Shenzhen (4th), Lotte World Tower in Seoul (5th), CTF Finance Centre in Guangzhou (7th), and the Shanghai World Financial Center (11th).
2 Comments
something so empty about KPF buildings — like going through the motions of trite corporate design ... I bet a vase was involved in the power point presentation
It's written directly in the article:
"CITIC Tower’s design draws inspiration from the 'zun', a ritual vessel originating in Bronze Age China," explains the project description from the architects behind the structure's design, Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates.
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/50.61.5/
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