Background
Construction was started in 2004 and was expected to be completed in May 2009. The building was to be named "Television Cultural Center", TVCC, with the Beijing Mandarin Oriental being its main tenant.
Its nicknames include the Termite's Nest or the Boot because of its radical design. The building, along with the CCTV Headquarters Building, was built using far less steel than conventional skyscrapers, and designed to withstand major earthquakes. The radical structure gives the towers their form. In all, 140,000 tonnes of steel was used in its construction.
The construction budget of the building is said to be near US$730 million. The center would have included a television studio with seating for 1,500 audience members, recording studios, digital cinemas, news release facilities, and a 241 room five-star hotel to be operated by Mandarin Oriental. The total height of the 44-floor building was 159m. The innovative, wedge-shaped building was designed by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas and his firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture. The engineering firm for the building was Arup, East Asia, who designed and built the TVCC after an extensive internal study of the World Trade Center building collapses on 11 September 2001.
Read more about this topic: Beijing Television Cultural Center Fire
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