At some point in your life, you may have heard the following: "Plus ca change, plus c'est le meme chose." Yes, the French do indeed have a more elegant way of encapsulating
today's burning of Rem Koolhaas' yet-to-be completed 44-story luxury hotel in Beijing. Throughout the exhaustive construction,
many have questioned the fire risks of this "chimney-like" structure, as well as that of the neighboring CCTV monstrosity. Now, amidst the flashes of Die Hard and Blade Runner, the flames of Koolhaus' creation is an equal homage to the smoke-and-mirror patterns of our greatest architects - from
Frank Lloyd Wright to
Frank Gehry - as much as the fireworks of the Lantern Festival that started the blaze. Yes, things will indeed continue to change (for both good and bad) in architectural design...hopefully they won't continue to stay the same.
