Fire destroys the hotel portion of CCTV in Beijing

[Prince George]

The angular L-shaped hotel next to the much bigger bent coat-hanger CCTV tower, all designed by Rem Koolhaas and his OMA offices, has burned down prior to opening later this year. Initial reports are that it was caused by fireworks that were installed for the Chinese new year celebrations. The only reported injuries have been firefighters, the building was unoccupied at the time. The NY Times is reporting that it took only 20 minutes for the fire to consume half of the 34 story building, a half-hour to engulf it all; that seems a little alarming - how was a modern building so vulnerable to fire?




There is some talk of this being a symbolic end to the present era of iconic skyscrapers, although the real reasons for that demise are financial rather than pyrotechnical. It is also especially inauspicious that it happened right at the new year in China. The Chinese media appear to be avoiding reporting it, and there is some doubt that the actual cause will ever be made public. Which would be a very great loss for building design and engineering - the state of the art only moves forward by close public examination of its failures.

http://blog.archpaper.com/wordpress/200 ... el-ablaze/
http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sec ... 00018f8006

EDIT - that second image has a habit of not appearing properly, you can see it here http://news.ifeng.com/photo/news/200902 ... 2188.shtml

[AG]

The building design is curious. There is an atrium that runs the entire height of the building, so when the fire spread to the inside of the building there's no doubt it would've spread through the entire building very quickly. Also, I'm not sure what the exterior was covered in, but it must have been highly flammable for the entire exterior to burn so quickly. That wouldn't happen to a typical building with the exterior covered in glass, steel and/or concrete. There's some pictures of the terrible outcome on Skyscrapercity in the Skyscrapers forum.

According to Beijing media, the fire started on the roof of the building.

[Omicron]

Good lord - did they make it out of paper and matchsticks?

Given recent events, it's probably somewhat politically incorrect to be staring in awe at a building fire, but that's a impressive sight.

[Howie]

There is some talk of this being a symbolic end to the present era of iconic skyscrapers, although the real reasons for that demise are financial rather than pyrotechnical. It is also especially inauspicious that it happened right at the new year in China. The Chinese media appear to be avoiding reporting it, and there is some doubt that the actual cause will ever be made public.

I thought the TV station staff were taking responsibility for OTT fireworks.
http://english.rednet.cn/c/2009/02/11/1705826.htm

Either way that's one hell of a fire! If it were Westpac House@135m everyone in Adelaide could probably see it, to imagine this was a 200m building. I'm absolutely dumbfounded..

[fabricator]

Its just not worth making them out of bamboo is it