Ole Scheeren helped create perhaps the most aggressive building on the Beijing skyline — the CCTV tower, which he designed with Rem Koolhaas before opening his own firm, Buro Ole Scheeren, in 2010. Now Scheeren hopes to become known for a less divisive contribution to the Beijing scene — an auction house headquarters that, despite its 600,000 square feet, treads lightly on its site, and which may represent a way forward for foreign architects in China under a culturally conservative regime.
Scheeren’s client is the Chinese-owned auction house China Guardian, which wanted more than the required galleries and sales rooms. Indeed, its so-called Guardian Art Center, scheduled to open in 2016, will include a 120-room hotel, as well as a library, bookshop, lecture hall and restaurants. Guardian President Wang Yannan, the daughter of the former Chinese premier Zhao Ziyang, studied hotel management in Hawaii. She calls the center “a comprehensive enterprise with an auctioning pivot.”
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