Chinese media, advertising, and urban life.

The controversy over the supposed "dirty joke" behind the new CCTV headquarters building hit the mainstream press this week.

Both the China Daily and the Global Times sought responses from the architecture community as well as China's Internet users, and yWeekend splashed a suggestive illustration across the cover of its Thursday issue.

There's been enough widespread coverage that even if the CCTV complex wasn't actually intended to look like genitalia, Beijingers may never be able to look at the buildings the same way again.

CCTV itself responded: its website interviewed Rem Koolhaas on August 26. The questions and answers stressed the uniqueness and creativity of the CCTV building, but did not actually mention the pornographic interpretation that has the Chinese media all riled up.

Here's a transcript (the reporter's questions are translated from Chinese; Koolhaas answered in English):

Reporter: Mr. Koolhaas, there have been rumors recently surrounding the design of the new CCTV building. I wonder what reaction you had when you first heard or read about the rumors?
Koolhaas: My first reaction has been that it's categorically untrue, the rumors. I didn't have any intention with CCTV except to do the best possible headquarters for CCTV, the company, and to make the best possible contribution to the city of Beijing. Another response is that I'm extremely sad that the best intentions, the best work of so many people, literally thousands of people, from the architects to the company to the workers, is compromised by this rumor, which as I said has no truth whatsoever.

Reporter: We know that a few days ago you issued a statement of clarification about the matter on the OMA website. Could you explain it in more detail for us?
Koolhaas: The images are simply not our work and they don't represent in any way my feelings or my intentions for CCTV.

Reporter: The design of the new CCTV building attracted widespread attention from the start. We'd like to hear about how your design concept and how you arrive at it. Could you share that with the public?
Koolhaas: I think that in the CBD there are going to be 300 skyscrapers, and since we work for CCTV we wanted to do a building that was different. CCTV is a very complex organization in which every part is related to every other part, so the main philosophy of the building is to create a loop in which this interconnection between all the parts is represented. That was our organizational ambition. And in terms of an object, an icon, or a piece of architecture, I wanted to do an architecture that does not have a single impression or a single image, that moves as you walk around it and that assumes a different identity every moment.