OLE SCHEEREN, the architect designing one of the world's biggest buildings for the Chinese state broadcaster CCTV complex in central Beijing, no longer believes in conventional skyscrapers. 'If you look at skyscrapers - the needle has no real identity, it marks a place but it doesn't create space in any real sense,' says Scheeren.
German-born Scheeren is a partner in Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) - the office founded by his mentor, Dutchman Rem Koolhaas, who is possibly the most controversial, and certainly the coolest, architect in the world.
We meet in the lobby of the Beijing Hotel and Scheeren is recognisable as an architect, dressed entirely in black. It's probably Prada - OMA has done a lot of work for Prada, building what it calls 'epicentres' for the Italian firm. OMA is now looking at building for Prada in Shanghai or Beijing.
Koolhaas is as much a writer and theorist as he is an architect and is still probably better known for his books on the principles and aesthetics of contemporary architecture than for the buildings he's created, although this will change as his many projects start to come to fruition, including the CCTV complex.
His writings reveal a truly gifted theorist and propagandist, a cultured iconoclast with a willingness to tackle the big issues in world architecture today and a love of buildings on a grand design, incorporating a sense of chaos and anonymity.
Scheeren clearly shares this belief in the importance of theory. 'Skyscrapers have become a commercial typology, where a little piece of land with a high value is repeated as often as possible to maximise profit,' he says. 'This is combined with a goal to be the tallest. Our whole polemic is built around the fact that you can only win for a certain length of time because then someone is going to be taller than you.'