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CCTV Tower

The CCTV Tower is a super-tall arch-shaped skyscraper located in the Central Business District of Beijing, China. Designed by Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren of OMA, the signature building joined other bold architectural projects in the city, such as the Bird's Nest and the National Grand Theater, to redefine the skyline of the ancient capital city of China before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Nestled amid a cluster of skyscrapers in the city's financial hub, the CCTV Tower has two leg-like towers that lean six degrees toward each other, meeting in mid air with a right-angled connecting structure that hangs 528 feet (160 meters) above the ground. The two leaning towers, each a skyscraper in its own right, are supported by braced steel tubes at the grid's perimeter. The huge leaning structure posed a significant construction challenge as the mega-sized foundation holding the skyscraper in place must be poured quickly, requiring hundreds if not thousands of concrete mixer trucks working together. The building has no movement joints and is one of the world's largest single structural systems. It is estimated that 20% less steel was used than in a single tower with the same gross floor area. The two leaning buildings were joined to become one building on 30 May 2007. In order not to lock in structural differentials, the final connection was scheduled in the early morning when the steel in the two towers cooled to the same temperature.

The 768 ft (234 m), 44-story skyscraper serves as headquarters for China Central Television (CCTV). Groundbreaking took place on June 1, 2004 and the building's facade was completed in January 2008. The CCTV building was part of a media park intended to form a landscape of public entertainment, outdoor filming areas, and production studios as an extension of the central green axis of the Central Business District. Local residents call the building by its nickname, 'the big boxer short'.

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