Guomao and the Beijing CBD: China Zun and the CCTV Loop

Because strict urban planning laws protect the low horizontal roofline of the historic city inside the Second Ring Road, Beijing concentrated its twenty-first-century skyscraper ambitions four kilometres east of the Forbidden City along the East Third Ring Road. Anchored by Guomao Station (the busy interchange of Subway Lines 1 and 10) and Jintailu Station (Lines 6 and 14), the Beijing Central Business District (Guomao CBD) provides a dramatic futuristic counterpoint to the Ming timber halls to the west.

Two architectural icons: China Zun and the CCTV Headquarters

Unlike dense forests of identical glass boxes, Beijing's CBD skyline is dominated by two bold architectural forms inspired by ancient Chinese geometry and ritual vessels:

• CITIC Tower (China Zun, Zhongguo Zun): rising 528 metres across 108 storeys as the tallest building in Beijing, its gently curving waist flares outward at both the base and the crown, modelled directly on a zun, a bronze ritual wine vessel from the Shang and Zhou dynasties (like those displayed inside the National Museum of China). On clear autumn days, its curved glass crown is visible all the way from the summit of Jingshan Park.
• China Media Group (CCTV) Headquarters: designed by Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren of OMA for the 2008 Olympics, this 234-metre structure rejects the traditional vertical tower altogether. Two leaning towers rise at six-degree angles from opposite corners of the block and join high in the air via a dramatic seventy-five-metre cantilevered L-shaped overhang, wrapped in a diagonal steel structural grid (diagrid) that expresses the building's seismic forces on its skin.

Best free and elevated viewpoints in Guomao

Since China Zun does not operate a public walk-up observation ticket deck, locals and photographers head instead to three accessible vantage points around the China World complex:

1. China World Mall (Guomao Shangcheng) North Zone 6th-Floor Outdoor Terrace: take the escalators inside the China World Mall at Guomao Station up to Level 6 and step out onto the open-air dining terrace. From here, you stand directly opposite the cantilevered loop of the CCTV Headquarters with China Zun rising immediately behind it across the Third Ring Road viaduct.
2. Atmosphere Bar or Grill 79 at China World Summit Wing (Floor 79 and 80): ride the high-speed lift up the 330-metre China World Tower for a coffee, afternoon tea or evening cocktail overlooking the entire eastern grid of the capital.
3. CBD Central Park: a quiet sunken lawn right at the foot of China Zun for wide-angle upward shots at blue hour.