We like: Beijing (part one)

It's Jeremy here - I've just been on holiday to Beijing and thought I'd show you some of my (very amateur) photos. The Chinese capital, of course, is justifiably well-known for the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, the charming old hutong neighbourhoods, and many other older buildings. But China's incredible economic growth also means its capital serves up a feast of fantastic contemporary architecture. I won't show it all to you here (I'll save some other shots for subsequent posts) but here are some highlights. First, the airport, by Foster + Partners. Huge, elegant and swooping:


Almost everyone knows what Herzog and de Meuron's 'Bird's Nest' stadium looks like. Here's my favourite image that I took of it:

Still not quite occupied is OMA's CCTV Tower, partly because the fire at the TVCC Tower to the left (which you can see charred and scarred in the photo below) set back progress. I was fascinated by the almost organic patterns of the steel structure of the main building. It reminded me of an object that had been trussed with twine to hold it up.

The building didn't dominate the cityscape like the I thought it would - partly because the city is so big and because, at 54 storeys, it isn't unusually tall. But there's no getting away from it once you get into the general vicinity.

Tomorrow, I'll post images of some of the other contemporary highlights of the city - buildings by Steven Holl and Kengo Kuma in particular.

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