Mandarin Hotel in Beijing by OMA on fire [UPDATED]

Feb 2009

By David Basulto — Filed under: News , Videos , Beijing, OMA

The Mandarin Hotel, adjacent to the CCTV building and part of the project, just got on fire today. The project, designed by OMA with facade studies by FRONT, looks to be completly affected as you can see on the above video. This supossedly started after fireworks during the last day of Chinese new year.

Mandarin Hotel on the left, CCTV at the right. Photo by Iwan Baan.

The hotel was used during the Olympics, but wasn´t officially opened yet, but was supossed to during 2009. This will definetely push dates back, as it seems like a complete loss to me.

Photos of the fire by Reuters here (very impressive, but can´t put them here because of copyright). More videos after the break.

UPDATE 5: Added 4 more videos

UPDATE 4: Statement from the Mandarin Hotel Group after the break

UPDATE 3: I replaced the first video with actual footage of the hotel starting to burn after the fireworks

UPDATE 2: Wonitata and other chinese blogs have impressive photos of the fire. See some more after the break.

UPDATE 1: Beijing police says the building could collapse

UPDATE: We just got the following statement from OMA:

The Office for Metropolitan Architecture has learned that there has been a serious fire at the Television Cultural Centre (TVCC), the building adjacent to the headquarters of China Central Television (CCTV).

The TVCC building was due to open in mid-May and contained a hotel, a theatre and several studios.

As we learn more about this tragedy, we will advise the public further.

Statement from the Mandarin Hotel Group:

Statement in response to the fire at the development site of Mandarin Oriental, Beijing

Mandarin Oriental, Beijing was scheduled to open in the summer of 2009. The property currently employs 60 staff, all of whom work in pre-opening offices near to the hotel, which were empty at the time of the fire. Mandarin Oriental has signed a long-term contract to manage the hotel and has no ownership interest in the building. Our local management team are doing all they can to help the authorities to ensure the safety and security of everyone involved. It is too early at the present stage to assess the damage, but we will make further updates as soon as we have more information.

29 comments »

alice says:

This is really a tradegy …. hope no lives in danger!!!

# February 9, 2009 at 13:29

archu says:

OMG Hw sad

# February 9, 2009 at 13:30

Hamster says:

The construction firm should be in problems right now.

# February 9, 2009 at 14:07

h says:

looks like they hooked up the gas line to the sprinklers.

# February 9, 2009 at 14:12

sisifo says:

nice coment h. it really look like they did that. its amazing to see such a great building burning down. its a damn fking situation.

# February 9, 2009 at 15:24

kou says:

How unfortunate.

There’s been little MSM coverage of this in China, only a “News Flash” at 07:00 (Beijing time) this morning. The fire started around 21:00 on the 9th.

# February 9, 2009 at 21:20

hiro says:

WTC?

# February 9, 2009 at 22:40

{ kattyface } says:

yikes.

# February 9, 2009 at 23:20

ornament and crime says:

What an incredible loss to the global architecture community.

# February 10, 2009 at 00:38

mil says:

the beginnin of the end.

# February 10, 2009 at 00:41

provecho says:

About the only thing more horrifying than this is the number of spelling and grammar mistakes in your post. Yowzers. Bonus points for making an extra effort.

# February 10, 2009 at 00:47

baobabs says:

I am still in disbelief. I stood right infront of the burning building, the fire engines and police took forever to arrive with the bottleneck traffic.

Ironically, the news has been censored by CCTV when it involved the tragedy of its new building.

# February 10, 2009 at 02:38

flip says:

KINDLY REFRAIN FROM “NONSENSE” STATEMENTS..

# February 10, 2009 at 02:39

MZ says:

You start yourself asking: what are the local fire-protection regulations? Non-inflamable materials required? Curtainwall systems with nonburning core? Sprinklersystems? Smokealarms? Firefree elevators for the firefighters to locally fight the fire? The capacity of the firefighters? Where are the firefighter on the pictures anyways? O.K., we know way to little about this to make a fair judgement, but such high flames are really scary, and there should have been a number of barriers to be broken before it got so out of controll. Such high-rise buildings are planned all over the world with outmost care, in some regions the design is directly effected by fire regulations. We can only hope that the load bearing structure didn´t get damaged too bad.

# February 10, 2009 at 05:23

Ash says:

That horrible building is not a loss to architecture. but its sad for those construction workers, architects and engineers whos spent years of their lives erecting it.

# February 10, 2009 at 06:24

J says:

@MZ: Koolhaas inspected the building three weeks ago and told the press the spinklers were to be installed after Chinese holiday.

# February 10, 2009 at 08:28

branxu says:

hmmm
something was fishy with the facade it burned out to quick.

# February 10, 2009 at 09:24

gonzales says:

not constructors or materials failed…the organisors of fireworks and city govenment are responsible for it !!!

5 minutes of happyness

# February 10, 2009 at 11:59

威 says:

唉！悲哀！

# February 10, 2009 at 18:09

can a firework burn a building down? in the video, the fire started in a corner, then spread upwards.. am i right? in just one corner?

# February 10, 2009 at 20:53

The local news says that the CCTV set off unlicensed custom made fireworks that went out of control… The question is how could a building of steel and glass catch fire so quickly and keep burning?

# February 10, 2009 at 23:22