942
Global
Height rank

CCTV Headquarters

Beijing
Height
1
To Tip:
Height is measured from the level of the lowest, significant, open-air, pedestrian entrance to the highest point of the building, irrespective of material or function of the highest element (i.e., including antennae, flagpoles, signage and other functional-technical equipment).
237.5 m / 779 ft
2
Architectural:
Height is measured from the level of the lowest, significant, open-air, pedestrian entrance to the architectural top of the building, including spires, but not including antennae, signage, flag poles or other functional-technical equipment. This measurement is the most widely utilized and is employed to define the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) rankings of the "World's Tallest Buildings."
234 m / 768 ft
3
Occupied:
Height is measured from the level of the lowest, significant, open-air, pedestrian entrance to the highest occupied floor within the building.
213.9 m / 702 ft
  Floors
Above Ground
The number of floors above ground should include the ground floor level and be the number of main floors above ground, including any significant mezzanine floors and major mechanical plant floors. Mechanical mezzanines should not be included if they have a significantly smaller floor area than the major floors below. Similarly, mechanical penthouses or plant rooms protruding above the general roof area should not be counted. Note: CTBUH floor counts may differ from published accounts, as it is common in some regions of the world for certain floor levels not to be included (e.g., the level 4, 14, 24, etc. in Hong Kong).
54
Below Ground
The number of floors below ground should include all major floors located below the ground floor level.
3
1 2 3 CCTV Headquarters
Height 234 m / 768 ft
Floors 54
Official Name
The current legal building name.

CCTV Headquarters

Other Names
Other names the building has commonly been known as, including former names, common informal names, local names, etc.

China Central TV Headquarters

Type
CTBUH collects data on two major types of tall structures: 'Buildings' and 'Telecommunications / Observation Towers.' A 'Building' is a structure where at least 50% of the height is occupied by usable floor area. A 'Telecommunications / Observation Tower' is a structure where less than 50% of the structure's height is occupied by usable floor area. Only 'Buildings' are eligible for the CTBUH 'Tallest Buildings' lists.

Building

Status
Completed
Architecturally Topped Out
Structurally Topped Out
Under Construction
Proposed
On Hold
Never Completed
Vision
Competition Entry
Canceled
Proposed Renovation
Under Renovation
Renovated
Under Demolition
Demolished

Completed

Completion

2012

Country
The CTBUH follows the United Nations's definition of Country, and thus uses the lists and codes established by that organization.

China

City
The CTBUH follows the United Nations's definition of City, and thus uses the lists and codes established by that organization.

Beijing

Function
A single-function tall building is defined as one where 85% or more of its usable floor area is dedicated to a single usage. Thus a building with 90% office floor area would be said to be an "office" building, irrespective of other minor functions it may also contain.

A mixed-use tall building contains two or more functions (or uses), where each of the functions occupy a significant proportion of the tower's total space. Support areas such as car parks and mechanical plant space do not constitute mixed-use functions. Functions are denoted on CTBUH "Tallest Building" lists in descending order, e.g., "hotel/office" indicates hotel function above office function.

Office

Structural Material
All-Steel
Both the main vertical/lateral structural elements and the floor spanning systems are constructed from steel. Note that a building of steel construction with a floor system of concrete planks or concrete slab on top of steel beams is still considered an “all-steel” structure as the concrete elements are not acting as the primary structure.

All-Concrete
Both the main vertical/lateral structural elements and the floor spanning systems are constructed from concrete which has been cast in place and utilizes steel reinforcement bars and/or steel reinforced concrete which has been precast as individual components and assembled together on-site.

All-Timber
Both the main vertical/lateral structural elements and the floor spanning systems are constructed from timber. An all-timber structure may include the use of localized non-timber connections between timber elements. Note that a building of timber construction with a floor system of concrete planks or concrete slab on top of timber beams is still considered an “all-timber” structure as the concrete elements are not acting as the primary structure.

Mixed-Structure
Utilizes distinct systems (e.g. all-steel, all-concrete, all-timber), one on top of the other. For example, a Steel Over Concrete indicates an all-steel structural system located on top of an all-concrete structural system, with the opposite true of Concrete Over Steel.

Composite
A combination of materials (e.g. steel, concrete, timber) are used together in the main structural elements. Examples include buildings which utilize: steel columns with a floor system of reinforced concrete beams; a steel frame system with a concrete core; concrete-encased steel columns; concrete-filled steel tubes; etc. Where known, the CTBUH database breaks out the materials used within a composite building’s primary structural elements.

Concrete-Steel Composite

Height
Architectural
Height is measured from the level of the lowest, significant, open-air, pedestrian entrance to the architectural top of the building, including spires, but not including antennae, signage, flag poles or other functional-technical equipment. This measurement is the most widely utilized and is employed to define the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) rankings of the "World's Tallest Buildings."

234 m / 768 ft

To Tip
Height is measured from the level of the lowest, significant, open-air, pedestrian entrance to the highest point of the building, irrespective of material or function of the highest element (i.e., including antennae, flagpoles, signage and other functional-technical equipment).
237.5 m / 779 ft
Occupied
Height is measured from the level of the lowest, significant, open-air, pedestrian entrance to the highest occupied floor within the building.
213.9 m / 702 ft
Observatory
162.9 m / 534 ft
Helipad
Height, measured from the level of the lowest, significant, open-air, pedestrian entrance, to the building's helipad.
234 m / 768 ft
Floors Above Ground
The number of floors above ground should include the ground floor level and be the number of main floors above ground, including any significant mezzanine floors and major mechanical plant floors. Mechanical mezzanines should not be included if they have a significantly smaller floor area than the major floors below. Similarly, mechanical penthouses or plant rooms protruding above the general roof area should not be counted. Note: CTBUH floor counts may differ from published accounts, as it is common in some regions of the world for certain floor levels not to be included (e.g., the level 4, 14, 24, etc. in Hong Kong).

54

Floors Below Ground
The number of floors below ground should include all major floors located below the ground floor level.

3

# of Parking Spaces
Number of Parking Spaces refers to the total number of car parking spaces contained within a particular building.

2702

# of Elevators
Number of Elevators refers to the total number of elevator cars (not shafts) contained within a particular building (including public, private and freight elevators).

75

Top Elevator Speed
Top Elevator Speed refers to the top speed capable of being achieved by an elevator within a particular building, measured in meters per second.

7 m/s

Tower GFA
Tower GFA refers to the total gross floor area within the tower footprint, not including adjoining podiums, connected buildings or other towers within the development.

316,000 m² / 3,401,396 ft²

Rankings

#
942
Tallest in the World
#
12
Tallest in Beijing

Construction Schedule

2002

Proposed

2004

Construction Start

2012

Completed

Architect
Architect of Record

Usually takes on the balance of the architectural effort not executed by the "Design Architect," typically responsible for the construction documents, conforming to local codes, etc. May often be referred to as "Executive," "Associate," or "Local" Architect, however, for consistency CTBUH uses the term "Architect of Record" exclusively.

Structural Engineer
Design

The Design Engineer is usually involved in the front end design, typically taking the leadership role in the Schematic Design and Design Development, and then a monitoring role through the CD and CA phases.

Engineer of Record

The Engineer of Record takes the balance of the engineering effort not executed by the “Design Engineer,” typically responsible for construction documents, conforming to local codes, etc.

MEP Engineer
Design

The Design Engineer is usually involved in the front end design, typically taking the leadership role in the Schematic Design and Design Development, and then a monitoring role through the CD and CA phases.

Contractor
Main Contractor

The main contractor is the supervisory contractor of all construction work on a project, management of sub-contractors and vendors, etc. May be referred to as "Construction Manager," however, for consistency CTBUH uses the term "Main Contractor" exclusively.

Other Consultant

Other Consultant refers to other organizations which provided significant consultation services for a building project (e.g. wind consultants, environmental consultants, fire and life safety consultants, etc).

Vertical Transportation
Owner
China Central Television
Developer
General Office of CCTV New Site Construction & Development Program
Architect
Design

Usually involved in the front end design, with a "typical" condition being that of a leadership role through either Schematic Design or Design Development, and then a monitoring role through the CD and CA phases.

Office for Metropolitan Architecture
Architect of Record

Usually takes on the balance of the architectural effort not executed by the "Design Architect," typically responsible for the construction documents, conforming to local codes, etc. May often be referred to as "Executive," "Associate," or "Local" Architect, however, for consistency CTBUH uses the term "Architect of Record" exclusively.

Structural Engineer
Design

The Design Engineer is usually involved in the front end design, typically taking the leadership role in the Schematic Design and Design Development, and then a monitoring role through the CD and CA phases.

Engineer of Record

The Engineer of Record takes the balance of the engineering effort not executed by the “Design Engineer,” typically responsible for construction documents, conforming to local codes, etc.

MEP Engineer
Design

The Design Engineer is usually involved in the front end design, typically taking the leadership role in the Schematic Design and Design Development, and then a monitoring role through the CD and CA phases.

Contractor
Main Contractor

The main contractor is the supervisory contractor of all construction work on a project, management of sub-contractors and vendors, etc. May be referred to as "Construction Manager," however, for consistency CTBUH uses the term "Main Contractor" exclusively.

Other Consultant

Other Consultant refers to other organizations which provided significant consultation services for a building project (e.g. wind consultants, environmental consultants, fire and life safety consultants, etc).

Access
2x4
Acoustics
Façade

These are firms that consult on the design of a building's façade. May often be referred to as "Cladding," "Envelope," "Exterior Wall," or "Curtain Wall" Consultant, however, for consistency CTBUH uses the term "Façade Consultant" exclusively.

Front Inc.
Food Service
Romano Gatland
Landscape
Inside Outside
Lighting
Lighting Planners Associates
Stormwater Management
Fast Flow Systems Pte Ltd
Vertical Transportation
Material Supplier

Material Supplier refers to organizations which supplied significant systems/materials for a building project (e.g. elevator suppliers, facade suppliers, etc).

Aluminium
Guangdong JMA Aluminium Profile Factory (Group) Co., Ltd.
Ceiling
Armstrong World Industries
Cladding
Jangho Group Co., Ltd.
Paint/Coating
AkzoNobel
Steel
China Construction Steel Structure Corporation

CTBUH Awards & Distinctions

Best Tall Building Worldwide 2013 Winner

2013 CTBUH Awards

Best Tall Building, by Region, Asia & Australasia 2013 Winner

2013 CTBUH Awards

 

CTBUH Initiatives

Beijing Regional Tour Report

20 September 2014 - Event

Tongji University Faculty and Students Visit Chicago

1 November 2013 - Event

Videos

17 October 2016 | Beijing

China's Architecture Guidelines in the New Era

This presentation endeavors to establish guidelines for a new era of architecture in China, setting forth principles on improved policy implementation to promote the development...

Research

01 August 2020

Interactive Study on Skybridges of Significance

CTBUH Research

Linking tall buildings with horizontal spaces, whether purely for circulation or containing programming, has been a subject of fascination for as long as tall buildings...

About CCTV Headquarters

The CCTV headquarters is an unusual take on the skyscraper typology. Instead of competing in the race for ultimate height and style through a traditional two-dimensional tower soaring skyward, CCTV’s loop poses a truly three-dimensional experience, culminating in a 75-meter cantilever.

CCTV’s form facilitates the combination of the entire process of TV-making in a loop of interconnected activities. Two towers rise from a common production studio platform, the Plinth. Each tower has a different character: Tower 1 serves as editing area and offices, and the lower Tower 2 is dedicated to news broadcasting. They are joined by a cantilevering bridge for administration, the Overhang.

The main lobby, in Tower 1, is an atrium stretching three floors underground, and three floors up. It has a direct connection with Beijing’s subway network, and is the arrival and departure hub for the 10,000 workers inside CCTV headquarters. Connected to the lobby, 13 production studios (the largest is 2,000 square meters) perform the main function of the building: TV making.

The CCTV headquarters also facilitates an unprecedented degree of public access to the production of China’s media: a Public Loop takes visitors on a dedicated path through the building, revealing everyday studio work as well as the history of CCTV, and culminating at the edge of the cantilever, with spectacular views towards the CBD, the Forbidden City, and the rest of Beijing.

A Media Park forms a landscape of public entertainment, outdoor filming areas and production studios as an extension of the central green axis of the CBD.

The innovative structure of the CCTV Headquarters is the result of long-term collaboration between European and Chinese architects and engineers to achieve new possibilities for the high-rise. Early on, the team determined that the only way to deliver the desired architectural form was to engage the entire facade structure, creating in essence an external continuous tube system. The tube, which resists all of the lateral forces on the building and also carries much of the gravity force, is ideally suited to deal with the nature and intensity of permanent and temporary loading on the building.

The engineering forces at work are thus rendered visible on the façade: a web of triangulated steel tubes – diagrids – which, instead of forming a regular pattern of diamonds, become dense in areas of greater stress and looser and more open in areas requiring less support. The façade itself becomes a visual manifestation of the building's structure.

A versatile, efficient structure that bridges in bending and torsion between the Towers to create the continuous form of the Overhang section, the diagrid provides enough strength and stiffness in the Towers to carry loads to the ground. The structural system stiffens the podium and tower bases to favorably distribute loads to the foundation. It enables performance to be optimized, through adjustment of the bracing pattern, to satisfy contrasting demands of stiffness and flexibility.

The diagrid provides maximum flexibility for the bespoke planning of the interiors, since bracing is not needed within the floorplates. This allows large studio spaces to be laid out within the towers. It has enabled the Overhang section to be constructed without the need for temporary propping, since the braced skin provided stability as the steelwork was cantilevered out from the towers. This type of structure has a high degree of inherent robustness and redundancy, due to the potential for adopting alternative load paths in the unlikely event a key element’s removal.

The self-supporting hybrid facade structure features high performance glass panels with a sun shading of 70 percent open ceramic frit, creating the soft silver-grey color that gives the building a surprisingly subtle presence in the Beijing skyline.

CTBUH Awards & Distinctions

Best Tall Building Worldwide 2013 Winner

2013 CTBUH Awards

Best Tall Building, by Region, Asia & Australasia 2013 Winner

2013 CTBUH Awards

17 October 2016 | Beijing

China's Architecture Guidelines in the New Era

This presentation endeavors to establish guidelines for a new era of architecture in China, setting forth principles on improved policy implementation to promote the development...

18 September 2014 | Beijing

The Public Meaning of Skyscrapers: Shenzhen Stock Exchange and CCTV

David Gianotten from OMA presents at the 2014 Shanghai Conference closing plenary on "The Public Meaning of Skyscrapers: Shenzhen Stock Exchange and CCTV."

07 November 2013 | Beijing

Best Tall Building Asia & Australasia: CCTV Headquarters: A New Typology for the Skyscraper

CCTV Headquarters singlehandedly paved the way from the height-obsessed, set-back skyscraper of the past to the sculptural and spatial skyscraper of the present, at the...

07 November 2013 | Beijing

CTBUH 12th Annual Awards Dinner

The 12th Annual Awards Ceremony & Dinner was held in Mies van der Rohe's iconic Crown Hall, on the Illinois Institute of Technology campus, Chicago....

07 November 2013 | Beijing

Interview: CCTV Headquarters

Rem Koolhaas discusses CCTV Headquarters, the Best Tall Building Worldwide and Asia & Australasia Winner. Rem discusses his views on architecture and the issues with...

21 September 2012 | Beijing

Interview: Interconnecting Tall Buildings

James Robinson of Hongkong Land Limited is interviewed by Jeff Herzer during the 2012 CTBUH Shanghai Congress at the Jin Mao, Shanghai. James talks about...

19 September 2012 | Beijing

Asia Agenda

With Asia's unparalleled and continued pace of growth fueled by economic development, the world order has shifted eastwards, and China in particular has risen as...

05 March 2008 | Beijing

Challenging Preconceptions of the High-Rise Typology

Ole Scheeren from the Office of Metropolitan Architecture, presented some of the strategies utilized by OMA to challenge preconceptions of the tall building typology at...

05 March 2008 | Beijing

Nonlinear Dynamic Earthquake Analysis of Skyscrapers

Sam Lee, of Guangzhou Scientific Computing Consultants, presented a solution on the ABAQUS platform at the CTBUH 8th World Congress in Dubai by selecting the...

01 August 2020

Interactive Study on Skybridges of Significance

CTBUH Research

Linking tall buildings with horizontal spaces, whether purely for circulation or containing programming, has been a subject of fascination for as long as tall buildings...

11 October 2019

Tall Buildings in Numbers: 50 Years of Tall Building Evolution

CTBUH Research

The default image of the skyscraper for the past 50 years in the public imagination has likely been the extruded, rectilinear corporate “box,” derived from...

01 March 2018

Dynamic Interrelationship between the Evolution of the Structural Systems and Façade Design in Tall Buildings

Kyoung Sun Moon, Yale University School of Architecture

The emergence of tall buildings in the late 19th century was possible by using new materials and separating the role of structures and that of...

01 December 2016

An Overview of Structural & Aesthetic Developments in Tall Buildings Using Exterior Bracing & Diagrid Systems

Kheir Al-Kodmany, University of Illinois; Mir M. Ali, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

There is much architectural and engineering literature which discusses the virtues of exterior bracing and diagrid systems in regards to sustainability - two systems which...

17 October 2016

How High Could Beijing Reach?

Long Ma, Jing Huang & Cheng Hou, BIAD

Can we still save our city? How high can buildings in Beijing arise? Beijing has so many ancient buildings; can they coexist harmoniously with skyscrapers?...

16 September 2014

The Public Meaning of Skyscrapers: Shenzhen Stock Exchange and CCTV

David Gianotten, Rem Koolhaas & Sylvia Chan, OMA

Through the designs of Shenzhen Stock Exchange and the CCTV Headquarters in Beijing, the paper illustrates the potential of skyscrapers in creating public meaning. This...

26 February 2014

The New Context of Tall

Rem Koolhaas & David Gianotten, OMA

On the occasion of receiving the Best Tall Building Worldwide award at the 12th Annual CTBUH Awards Symposium and Dinner for CCTV Headquarters, Beijing, Rem...

01 September 2013

Field Measurements of the New CCTV Tower in Beijing

Y. L. Xu & Y. Xia, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University; S. Zhan, H. Xia & N. Zhang, Beijing Jiaotong University

The emergence of a growing number of tall buildings, often with unusual shapes and innovative structural systems, has led to the realization of the need...

21 September 2012

Asia Agenda

Ole Scheeren, Büro Ole Scheeren

With Asia’s unparalleled and continued pace of growth fueled by economic development, the world order has shifted eastwards, and China has risen as the defining...

01 August 2012

Finding Structural Solutions by Connecting Towers

Andrew Luong & Michael Kwok; Arup

A study of a number of linked high-rise towers in China finds designs anchored by innovative, unimposing structural solutions, which address issues of costs and...

21 September 2014

Beijing Regional Tour Report

Attendees of the Beijing tour toured the new CBD development on the east side of town, projected to contain 15 towers, many of whose foundations were already visibly underway.

1 November 2013

Tongji University Faculty and Students Visit Chicago

“Towards Zero Carbon,” a collaborative design studio between Tongji University, CTBUH and the Illinois Institute of Technology, made a week-long visit to Chicago in November.

1 September 2013

International Journal of High-Rise Buildings Vol. 2 No. 3

The International Journal of High-Rise Buildings, Volume 2: Number 3 includes 8 papers focusing on pure research content and investigations in tall building design.

17 July 2011

Path to the CTBUH 2012 Shanghai Congress: Beginnings…

CTBUH Leaders recently traveled to China to attend a CTBUH-Tongji University workshop, and begin the planning of the anticipated 9th World Congress Shanghai 2012.