My love affair with Beijing, China, began with a beautiful building on the skyline. A differently shaped building called to me during my drive from the airport to the DRC Diplomatic apartments that would be my home away from home for 4 months. It would call to me repeatedly in the distance, framing the skyline as I journeyed via bus to events across Beijing and beyond.
One night in early October, I gave in to my curiosity, walked in the building’s direction, and became more enamoured with the design and the pull to come closer. I became even more fixated on the design and its story. Thus, the quest began to discover ‘Big Pants,’ culminating in an unexpected bonus: a week’s internship in the television unit of China Global Television Network (CGTN) housed in the building.
It is said that a taxi driver first came up with its nickname dà kùchǎ (大裤衩), roughly
translated as “big boxer shorts,” which eventually morphed into “Big Pants”. It is one of ten buildings over 200m tall in the city and among the world’s largest office buildings.
Rem Koolhaas and Ole Schwerin of the Office of Modern Architecture Company designed ‘Big Pants’ during one of China’s transformative phases. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) had recently signed on to the World Trade Organization, won the bid to host the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, and set about upgrading the Central Business District (CBD). The chief architect viewed the project as one that would be futuristic in its outlook, an “ultimate expression that exposes the conflicting energies at work in society giving rise to the slippery symbolism of its exterior,” which would reinvent the traditional skyscraper presenting analternative format for high-rise buildings.
Construction began in June 2004 and opened officially on January 1, 2008. It was among the first of three hundred new towers constructed in the then-new Beijing CBD. Breaking the traditional physical tower appearance, the main building is a loop of six horizontal and vertical sections covering 473,000 m2(5,090,000 sq. ft.) of floor space, an irregular grid on the building’s façade with an open center. It was built as three buildings that were joined to become one and a half.
An interesting commentary in 2014 by the internationally renowned co-designed architect Rem Koolhaas, the building “could never have been conceived by the Chinese and could never have been built by Europeans. It is a hybrid by definition” was a testament to the novel,futuristic approach to the design and the engineering and construction new norms that brought the building to life.
The building has won many awards, including the 2013 Best Tall Building Worldwide award from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. In 2014, architecture critics in the New York Times ‘feted’ the building as perhaps “the greatest work of architecture built in this century.”
Big Pants remains one of Beijing’s most eye-catching architectural pieces sixteen years later. It stands as an alluring draw in the skyline by night and day, an almost mandatory photo stop, and a marker around which to plan for many. It is an iconic structure often used in film and television to establish that the story is set in Beijing. And I got I got to see and explore!
As a fresh eye, the interior provided a good mix of lessons in planning and housing for thousands of staff members, with a mix of workspaces, recreational spaces, and physical and mental health spaces, with clear evidence of continued maintenance of upgrades to ensure that it continues to realise its primary function as a workplace.
In a country with many exciting architectural marvels and cutting-edge building construction, Big Pants remains a leading light in China’s path to modernization and a global example of urban transformation.
“Big Pants’ is owned by the state-owned China Media Group, which owns China Central Television (CCTV) and China Global Television Network (CGTN). Both entities’ headquarters and production centers are housed in the building.
My love affair with China continues to bloom!
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