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A 234 m loop of two leaning towers joined by a base and a dramatic cantilevered bridge at the top, nicknamed "Big Pants".

Instead of one straight tower, the building is a giant loop. Two leaning towers rise from a shared base and bend towards each other, then join at the top through a bridge-like section that sticks far out into the air. The design came from the Dutch architecture firm OMA, led by Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren, who wanted an alternative to the usual skyscraper that just reaches upward. Because of its shape, people in Beijing jokingly call it "big pants". In 2013 it was named the best tall building in the world by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat.

How it was built

Construction started in June 2004. Building the loop was a big engineering challenge, especially because Beijing lies in an area where earthquakes can happen. The structural engineering was done by the firm Arup, and the top section was designed to jut out about 75 metres with nothing underneath it. The two towers were joined high in the air in May 2007, the outer walls were finished in January 2008, and the whole building was completed in 2012.

The "big pants" nickname

Seen from some angles, the two leaning towers look like the legs of a giant pair of trousers, with the bridge at the top as the waist. Local people started calling it da kucha, which roughly means "big pants" or "big boxer shorts" in Chinese; the nickname is said to have come from a taxi driver. Another thing to notice is the outside walls: instead of neat, even windows, they are covered in an irregular grid of lines, so the building looks different from every side. Its unusual shape can be seen from most parts of Beijing.

What's inside

The building holds the headquarters offices of China Central Television, with 75 lifts moving people between its floors and three more floors underground. Next door stood a second building of the same project, the Television Cultural Center. On 9 February 2009, the day of the Lantern Festival, fireworks set it on fire before it was finished. One firefighter died, and the project's director and others were later sent to prison for their part in the fire.

On the globe

The model shows a 234 m loop of two leaning towers joined by a base and a dramatic overhanging bridge at the top. Zoom in on Beijing and look for the gap in the middle of the loop.