The Television Cultural Centre by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture burned down in Beijing last night. Exquisite photos of the aftermath as well as the fire itself can be seen on Andrew Lih’s Flickr Album. While I don’t have any fascination with chaos and destruction, the thought of these urban symbols of time do interest me.
When I see movies set in New York prior to 9/11, and the city skyline proudly exhibiting the two towers of the World Trade Center, I have a visceral and nostalgic response to that time. Pre-9/11 New York City means something, just as the years of “the hole” at Ground Zero mean something. It remains to be seen how we’ll interpret the Freedom Tower once it’s completed. Let’s hope that it comes to stand as the changing of the guard, patching over the deep political scars of the last eight years. Let’s hope that in 20 years we look back at the new tower as the time when we turned the page and moved on. Given the current economic environment, our hopeful future seems to be, at best, fairly harshly attenuated.
I know much less about the Television Cultural Centre (which was due to open in mid-May) and while it’s certainly not a revisitation of the tragedy of 9/11, it must constitute a severe setback for a country which is rapidly industrializing and in need of new cultural symbols. How sad for such a symbol to be destroyed by the errant fireworks of revellers celebrating Chinese New Year. What a powerful metaphor.
Update (February 10th, 1:14PM): Apparently the Chinese government is squelching media reports of the fire in an effort to restrict public speculation. Sad. I’m glad that we can at least consider what this means from here.
Also, another flickr photo album of the fire.
