As China “arrived” on the world stage, New York-based architecture firm Kohn Pedersen Fox was often the one building the set.
Illustration by Sam Ward
Robert Whitlock thought they had nailed it. A principal at architecture giant Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), Whitlock had been working on an exciting new project — the Beijing headquarters of CITIC, China’s powerful, state-owned conglomerate — and everyone seemed pleased with the design. The building was to be 528-meters tall — the largest building in China’s capital city — and the KPF architects had used the curvature of a zun, a ritual carafe from Bronze age China, for inspiration.
“If you think about this as a private commercial venture,” Whitlock reflected in a video for the Skyscraper Museum in February 2021, “the planners, the mayor, and I’m sure the premier, found intriguing the idea that the tower was meant to represent a vessel that was communal and for everyone in the city.”
The design was elegant and unique, with a tapered waist and the bottom wall folding out slightly, like the hem of a dress. The result, Whitlock said, allowed the building to
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