Internet lights up as new People's Daily HQ erected
The new People's Daily premises has attracted numerous suggestive comments on social media
The shape of the new headquarters of the People's Daily, the Communist Party's main propaganda machine, has sparked heated discussion online for looking a bit too phallic.
The building is still under construction in Beijing, but at its current stage, documented widely in pictures on social media sites, its shape is certainly suggestive.
Most photos posted on Sina Weibo, the mainland's most popular microblogging site, were removed by censors, and attempts to search for " People's Daily building" in Chinese were met with a message that read: "According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, search results cannot be displayed."
However, photos could still be found on other social media sites.
The 150-metre-tall building, located in the eastern extension of the capital's central business district, was designed by Zhou Qi, a professor of architecture at Southeast University in Jiangsu . It is expected to be finished in May 2014.
In a recent interview with the Modern Express, Zhou explained that his design echoed the ancient Chinese philosophy of "round sky and square earth", with the top part being cylindrical and the rest being squarish.