A terrible crime has been committed in the name of egotism and irresistible desire for absolute power.
A robust dictator turned its back to demising beauty. A cruel bastard...
Or,
ROMEO OR JULIET, MUMTAZ AND JAHAN, GIRLS IN THE MIDDLE...
(Read the double mystery here.)
TVCC Fire, 2/08/09
by Orhan Ayyuce,
It is true the situation went into the scale of architecture's 9/11 with the incredible carrying capacity of the countless blogs and fire experts, Rem haters, starchitect opposites, sensation riders, ambulance chasers, regime critics, anti communists, anti capitalists and friends of the enterprise.
As we speak, the smell of the burning rubber and melting steel is already upon China. I don't know if Rem Koolhaas is on a jet plane, to the burned job site.
Whatever the reason for the inferno at the building, one thing is clear that it will be remembered as the day iconic building died, by many. As if proponents of the 'whatever' needed a physical evidence that it has died, this could be it for those people... A believable turning point. When, these days, everyday marks something of the restless times. Best days to be in the news business, if you can stand the constant drumming.
A MURDER ON THE LANTERN NIGHT?
No, not so much the building itself, but the ghostly man next lot, whose dominating presence has been covered by the soot coming from its dead competition.
Perhaps this was a murder, by the two legged monster who killed her and chose the Lantern Night to do it. Since its extreme experience with construction, waited patiently just like the insane arsonist. An opportune moment arrived, when the rubber detail was being wrapped around her, he knew this was the best time to set the fire and blame on the Lantern Night...
A terrible crime has been committed in the name of egotism and irresistible desire for absolute power.
A robust dictator turned its back to demising beauty. A cruel bastard...
Or,
ROMEO OR JULIET, MUMTAZ AND JAHAN, GIRLS IN THE MIDDLE...
Let’s go the other way around. this time the theme is a love story...
Imagine, the irresistible attraction between two tombs in Taj Mahal... The ultimate lamentation of Love and Death, not as good as poetry but better than the filmic and the theatrical versions because of its inescapable presence as two architectural beings, even bisected.
The CCTV was never two, without TVCC of course. Now that his Juliet gone in a towering fire on a Lantern Night.
A sad situation. Watching your Nancy burn in the rubber hell. Contemplate your own future there.
Scared. Sad. Separated by death.
NOW WHAT?
I don't want to know why the building is burned. Architect’s fault or not, Lantern Fire is not my business.
When this all clears up,
I am interested in finding a new girl, no maybe a new nothing, no maybe a temporary lover, no maybe a long term mistress.
Get real, this is now. The speedy world of cast concrete, fast erect steel and extrusions to attach the German made glass.
I want to see the Yang's Yin...
A first memorial for a building...
She, in either scenario, set on fire in two mysteries. Gone, blackened. Leaving the bird's nest and his ETFE girl, the only hi profile couple in Beijing.
Sure, it is a crazy pair of a story above. For the famous pairs at least...
Does that remind you Koolhaas' Delirious New York buildings in bed? Not as full blown love as this though... Theirs was just sex...
Sad story indeed.
You can burn an Icon but Troy, written in Iliad is already seven stories deep below the terra firma... Not necessarily gone.
We need fire marshals and the love stories all the same for its news value...
27 Comments
I don't think the iconic building died, or will ever die. The pyramids, the acropolis, the Eiffel Tower, the Bilbao Guggenheim etc. will always be there to haunt you, and probably to remind you all who think that we were in such a unique episode in history that this is just a phase. I read these forums to see that every day someone is really excited to think that this recession will put an end to exuberant formalism, maybe it will slow it down, money will run out and we wont see many of these but it will never be over, all for the right reasons. Because imagination, fantasy and experimentation will always live. On the flip side, I hope a new era will shift the power in the direction of the people so that such pieces of architecture will be accessible by everyone, not just by the limited few who can afford to stay at mandarin oriental. If that is what you think should die, then I'm all for it.
Excellent writing Orhan. Touching even.
thank you evan...
Evan took the word out of my mouth
How many migrant workers were burned alive as they toiled to finish this hotel? Perhaps you'll find some quaint metaphor for the tragedy THAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED here today. Smell the burning skin? It belonged to actual humans.
thanks orhan. the immolating icon a new thing. on par with burning man or zozobra.
______________________________________________
Juliet just need to go to hospital, or asylum, for a few years. She will be back - and Romeo will be watching her rehabilitate every day, every hour, every minute of it.
She was a hollow lantern, but after a slip, at least it will be filled with a story to tell.
The morning after:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lawrencelry/3268929166/sizes/l/in/photostream/
@mnicolson: One firefighter dead. Is that smell of death down to earth enough? Or has it got to be some migrant workers killed?
And speaking of the Flickr photo, it reminds of what the building would look like if Beijing were Rome 2000 years later. Like what Louis Khan would see happen to its buildings.
insurance job
I knew someone would bring this up... the fire as some kind of symbolic end to iconic architecture. Contemporary culture (even more so w architects) always feel the need to quantify and sort things into "periods or styles" the very day something happens. To say that iconic architecture is over by the act of an accidental fire is far fetched.
Iconic architecture can be traced back to ancient Greece; just that one was religious and now our religion is capitalism. To say that its over with one building (which, by the way, is not even the centerpiece, or true "icon" building of the complex) being destroyed by fire is really grabbing at strings. Could this not have been posted in the forum instead of pretending to act as actual news on the fire? This speculation is not even theoretically interesting.
I have to say I err on the side of beefeaters here... I find the whole post-rationalisation of property loss - especially so soon after it happened, before it's even had any effect on the profession yet - to be pretty indulgent and if anything more of a sign of the pretention of architects that led to iconic architecture than a sign of its death.
This is not a personal attack, Orhan - just my opinion of the article. For me, I prefered immediacy of the original news article that simply reacted in the moment with a simple "TVCC on Fire!".
PS. It's Iliad not Lliad. ;)
all this chatter does give a certain mythologizing or martyrdom character to what was probably simply an accident.
so next we have to hear whether iconic building will be the phoenix rising from the ashes - depends how quickly tvcc gets back underway, i guess.
so, instead of universal recurring truths, will our 21stC mythologies be based on how quickly insurance checks arrive?
[all a little tongue in cheek; i'm sure there is actually no insurance involved. cctv/chinese gov't would be self-insured, would they not?]
it really speaks to the collective ego of architects, when a building fire is interpreted as the end of iconic architecture - as if anyone ever cared about was the architect and status of a building.
accidents do happen, people - it's not always about us.
Nice read, Orhan. Just posted a "morning after" impression on Abitare-site Burn After Building and some snapshots here as well.
agreed quitarchitect
nice Orhan, kind of reminds me of Robbe Grillet?
It may be a misinterpretation. The problem is that he intentionally/accidentally missed a pronoun: "Whatever the reason for the inferno at the building, one thing is clear that it will be remembered as the day iconic building died, by many."
It doesn't say "iconic buildingS", so the essay does not seem to be about collective ego about ALL iconic buildings.
It doesn't say "this iconic building", so it seems to leave room for other incidents.
I thought the "Icon" died on 9/11. Again that was a story of two (incestuous even as they were twins!) lovers whose lives were sadly cut short.
And brilliant writing Orhan.
"Sure, it is a crazy pair of a story above. But, can’t you tell me, this way, iconographic architecture also be looked at?"
This is brilliant writing?
ringlebt. i agree... it is very sloppy. i will fix it. or, take it out completely (i did). it was a carry over from a later changed sentence-train of thought. broken and not fixed... i have a bad habit of not reading the material well enough before publishing.
thanks for "all" the responses.
funny enough, there was very little chatter about the fire today. i really think all that talk about monumentality of this fire was really overrated.
you mean like.... your own talk of the monumentality of the fire? ;)
Icon??? Remember the Russian TV Tower that caught fire a decade ago?that media burn. But this is not the same as, lets say, the iconic Crystal Palace fire of the 1930s, or the flooding of the iconic glass box of Mies's Farnsworth residence, of the spectacular demolitions of those Las Vegas hotel 'icons' that defined the City and The Strip.
doesn't an 'icon' represent something specific? Like a flag is iconic for a nation. Or the statue of liberty iconic for America or American freedom. A predefined pictorial substitution, not relative to a context like metaphors, or symbols.
Giving iconic status to this unfinished. perhaps dead in childbirth, building is giving too much linguistic credit.
Iconic, the term, gets tossed around and watered down like that other overused word: Charisma, originally defined as 'A Christ -like persona' and first used to describe the Emperor Napoleon - today wholesale degraded to include anyone caught in the media mix .
Instant Icons? Bargain basement immortality.
These 'instant and disposable classics' sound alot like presskit hype coming from filmspeak (which says alot about how much cinema writing has influenced architecture discourse.)
Build me another 'box office smash'
But give this icon time. This loss will most likely be forgotten, as the next icon takes center stage,.and remember it will be rebuilt as yet another immortal 'icon',
eric
I watched this building burn from 9:00 to 11:00, then went out into the smoke, went to a club, got drunk, and danced to outdated commercial rap. On the cab ride home, the police had blocked off ChaoyangMenBei, so I got out and walked the remainder of the distance to my house. I kicked hollowed cartridges and piles of red paper in the streets while breathing thick chemical flavored air. Two things, Chinese companies don't get buildings insured. They are self insured. This is a huge financial loss for CCTV. Second, as an architect, it does pain me that this society doesn't value progressive design, or the value of design at all for that matter. Some appeared to be celebrating as they watched this building burn. They we're cheering the destruction of a building owned by a giant state owned company that controls the only media they have free access to. So I have to take that into account when dealing with my personal frustration and sadness.
why do people always bring it back to design? if they were cheering, it's most likely because of the giant state owned company, as you say... it's an icon of the oppressive chinese government, it sounds like, so maybe that made people happy. it literally has nothing to do with design whatsoever
Thanks for the back-and-forth everyone. I posted some thoughts on the fire at
http://theflashmemory.blogspot.com/2009/02/rem-koolhaas-oma-beijing-tvcc-fire.html
thanks Orhan! this story brings back memories
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