Plans to rebuild damaged CCTV building under way

Architect Ole Scheeren said that initial inspections show that the high-rise's steel structure largely withstood the fire and that preparations were under way to repair the China Central Television building.

"The preliminary findings are that the building can be repaired," he told The Associated Press in an interview late Wednesday. "It's still intact and safe. There will mainly be a repair effort but not a complete rebuilding."

Scheeren's comments are among the first public remarks about the extent of the damage to the futuristic-looking 5-billion-yuan ($735 million) CCTV complex, which features a pair of enormous, leaning buildings of black glass and steel.

The fire in February engulfed an adjacent 520-foot (159-meter), 44-story building that was to house a luxury Mandarin Oriental Hotel, which was only weeks away from opening. An unlicensed fireworks display arranged and paid for by CCTV to mark the end of the Lunar New Year started the blaze. One firefighter died.

The disaster became an embarrassing episode for CCTV. The complex helped transform the capital's skyline for last year's Olympics, had served as a monument to the ambitions of CCTV, which is unpopular with many Chinese because it's a faithful purveyor of government propaganda.

In the months since, the burnt building has stood untouched, its steel shell charred, next to the iconic leaning towers designed by Scheeren and his partner Rem Koolhaas in the firm OMA.

After an initial apology for the fire, CCTV has remained conspicuously silent on the whole topic. This week, CCTV's publicity department declined repeated requests for comment.

Scheeren said the main buildings were not damaged. He said there is no truth to persisting rumors that the towers and the burnt-out building were interconnected and served as a counterweight for each other.

"The two buildings are completely unrelated structurally. There's no connection between them. I think it's very important to dispel this kind of story that the two buildings are connected and one depends on the other. That's absolutely not true," he said.

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