What is the first thing that comes to mind when it comes to steel? For most people, steel is synonymous with "hardness", "coldness" and "industrial character", seemingly having nothing to do with "beauty". But when steel meets top architectural design, it transforms into the most touching scenery in a city. This article will take stock of 7 famous Chinese steel structure landmarks for you.
1. Beijing National Stadium (Bird's Nest)
As the most representative sports stadium in China, the Bird's Nest is a well-known iconic steel structure building among the Chinese people, and its steel structure design is a model of the integration of industrial aesthetics and sports spirit. It abandons the neat frame of traditional gymnasiums, and uses 42,000 tons of steel to build 20 interlaced main trusses, which support each other by imitating the "rib" shape of a natural bird's nest. There is not a single straight pole in the whole building, yet it props up an open roof equivalent to 3 football fields.
2. Shanghai Tower
With a building height of 632 meters, Shanghai Tower stands as the benchmark for super high-rise steel structure building technology in China. What touches people most is its unique "sense of growth" hidden in the vertical height. The designer takes the spiral steel structure core tube as the "steel spine" of the building. From the ground to the top floor, the steel tube rotates 1.5 degrees with each rise, which can effectively resist the impact of typhoons on super high-rise buildings, and makes the whole building look like a metal vine climbing upwards, completely breaking the dull stereotype of traditional super high-rise buildings.
3. Beijing Daxing International Airport
As the world's largest single terminal building, Beijing Daxing International Airport redefines the romantic dimension of transportation hub buildings with its "starfish" shape, and is also a classic application case of long-span truss steel structure. Its roof is assembled from 12,800 steel components, with a total area equivalent to 25 football fields, but the whole support is completed by only 8 steel columns. This engineering miracle is precisely attributed to the advanced long-span truss steel structure technology.
4. Raffles City Chongqing
Raffles City Chongqing is a representative work of vertical steel structure aesthetics in the mountain city of Chongqing. Breaking away from the planar layout of traditional urban complexes, it erects a 300-meter-long sky corridor at a height of 250 meters with 12,000 tons of steel, connecting 4 super high-rise towers. The total weight of this steel structure corridor is equivalent to 8 Boeing 747 aircraft, and the largest crawler crane in Asia was used for construction during the installation phase, making it a highly representative engineering miracle of high-altitude steel structure in the world.
5. Gate of the Orient Suzhou
Gate of the Orient Suzhou is a benchmark building integrating the gentle aesthetics of the Jiangnan region and modern steel structure. It gives up exaggerated and bizarre shapes, and interprets the unique gentle temperament of Jiangnan with steel lines. Two 301.8-meter-high towers serve as door pillars, and a 150-meter-long steel corridor in the middle acts as the lintel, forming a grand "Gate of the Orient" shape as a whole. The design team specially polished the edges and corners of the steel components into arcs, and the corridor trusses reproduce the soft curves of the collar of a cheongsam, making the hard steel present a soft texture like silk.
6. Harbin Grand Theatre
Harbin Grand Theatre is a hugely popular internet-famous steel structure landmark in Northeast China, which interprets the romantic coexistence of ice and snow and art with a hyperboloid steel structure shell. Breaking the square and neat form of traditional buildings, it consumes 15,000 tons of steel to build a hyperboloid steel structure shell, simulating the natural streamline of melting ice and snow in the sun. Viewed from a distance, it looks like two giant white white shells lying on the bank of the Songhua River, or an artistic sculpture carved from ice and snow, completely subverting the public's stereotype that "steel is cold".
7. Qingzhou Channel Bridge of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge
Qingzhou Channel Bridge of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is a representative of the romantic steel structure in bridge architecture. Breaking away from the conventional shape of traditional bridges, it creates two dolphins leaping out of the sea with steel structures. The main tower of the bridge is 163 meters high, the steel tower columns reproduce the smooth curves of a dolphin's body, and the steel cables are shaped like dolphin fins. Viewed from afar, the two steel towers are like dolphins jumping side by side on the Lingding Ocean.
These 7 classic Chinese steel structure landmarks span the north and south of China and cover diverse architectural forms. They are not only a concentrated display of China's steel structure design and construction technology, but also a vivid model of the perfect integration of industrial materials and architectural aesthetics. They have broken the public's inherent perception of steel as "cold, stiff and unaesthetic", and integrated practical functions, structural safety and artistic modeling with cutting-edge steel structure technologies such as long-span, super high-rise, special-shaped shell and high-altitude corridor. At the same time, they fit the urban temperament and regional culture, endowing each steel component with an exclusive story and aesthetic sense.