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We’ve been reading about China’s construction plans for years, and wondered whether all those huge buildings will be ready in time for the 2008 Olympics. Now those buildings are opening for business, one by one.
Beijing Airport
Beijing Capital International Airport’s new Terminal 3 will officially open tomorrow (February 29th). It is the world’s largest airport building with over ten million square feet of interior space. In fact, it is the second largest building in the world! Designed by Foster+Partners, it went from plans to opening day in less than four years. Ten villages were displaced to make room for the terminal. But don’t blame the Olympics; the old airport configuration was already straining under the load. Even this dragon-shaped design will be inadequate in another ten years or so.
Beijing National Stadium
The Beijing National Stadium is expected to be completed next month. Designed by the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron, it is sometimes called the “Birds Nest”, for obvious reasons. It has an official capacity of 91,000, but will likely hold 100,000 for the Olympic opening ceremonies. (image credit: Tee Meng)
National Aquatics Center
The National Aquatics Center was completed last month, and has already hosted the 2008 Swimming China Open. The “Water Cube” seats 17,000 people. The Aquatics Center was designed by PTW Architects, CSCEC International Design, and Arup. The striking exterior is made from translucent Ethylene tetrafluoroethylene, or ETFE, a strong, lightweight plastic that looks like glass, and is estimated to save 30% in energy costs over a traditional design.
Olympic Basketball Gymnasium
The Olympic Basketball Gym opened last month in Wukesong, west of Beijing. It covers 63,000 square meters and can seat 18,000 spectators. China’s basketball fever is largely due to the success of Yao Ming, who must sit out the rest of the NBA season with a stress fracture. Whether he will be able to play for the home team in August is now up in the air.
Olympic Green Tennis Center
The Olympic Green Tennis Center was completed in October, 2007. The three main courts look like flowers, with twelve sections of seating surrounding each court. The sections are separated by open vents to help circulate fresh air, which will be pumped in at the bottom of the stands. The main court will seat 10,000 spectators; the other two will seat 4,000 and 2,000 respectively. In addition to the three large courts, there are seven smaller courts that will host preliminary rounds and six training courts.
There are many more new venues specifically for Olympic competition and housing. You can see the art, and a few current photographs, at the Olympics site. There are also construction projects to accomodate the many visitors expected in August.
National Grand Theater
The National Grand Theater opened in 2007. The egg-shaped opera house with three auditoriums is made of titanium and glass and is surrounded by water. It seats 6,500 people. Designed by French architect Paul Andreu, the theater construction cost 50% more than estimated. Construction overruns and high maintenance costs will mean the Chinese government will have to subsidize the theater’s activites for several years at least. See more pictures here.
CCTV Headquarters
The CCTV Headquarters building was designed by Rem Koolhass of the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). The building is shaped like two Ls that are joined at the top, but the nickname that stuck is “the Z building.” When completed (supposedly in time for the Olympics), the 54 story building will stand 755 feet tall. Besides CCTV offices, the building will house a hotel, a visitor’s center, a theater, and exhibition space.
Hotels
China is also building at least 109 new hotels to accomodate Olympic travelers. Pictured is the 400-room Langham Place Beijing Capital Airport Hotel, scheduled to open in mid-2008. The biggest hotel project is the Beijing Marriott Hotel City Wall, with 615 rooms.
15,000 people have been relocated to make room for the Olympic venues. Six people have died in the construction projects, including two at the National Stadium. One project, a shooting range, was delayed over the discovery of imperial-era tombs. Many ancient artifacts were discovered as bulldozers broke ground at several other sites. The Olympics begin August 8th.
Comments (25)
Comment
Hooray! I’m going to China this summer (pre-Olympics), so this post just made me more excited to see this stuff! I really, really want to see the “Water Cube”. It looks so cool!
posted by kate on 2-28-2008 at 8:39 am
I wonder if they renovated their dissident imprisonment facilities too.
posted by Ira on 2-28-2008 at 8:49 am
Oh, yippee… Red China is putting on a civilized face for the free world. Flashback to Berlin, 1936.
posted by Sid Morrison on 2-28-2008 at 8:58 am
Oh, come on! Wake up and smell the 21st century, Ira and Sid. Or shall we all hunker down and refuse to see China as anything but the Yellow Peril?! The story is about the architecture and glorious it is.
posted by Alice on 2-28-2008 at 10:08 am
Interesting… I wonder how many of these projects involved Chinese architects? I noticed a couple of ‘western’ firms attached to some of them.
posted by Roger on 2-28-2008 at 10:10 am
From what I’ve read, an awful lot of these buildings were designed by Europeans who won design competitions.
posted by Miss Cellania on 2-28-2008 at 10:27 am
I like how we Americans are so glib about 10 villages being “displaced” to make room for an airport terminal, that by the articles wording, will be inadequate in about 10 yrs. I don’t think those Chinese villagers really care how “glorious” the architecture is if they had to give up their land. Then again, they probably didn’t have a choice anyway. Hooray for Apathy! Watch out El Segundo residents, LAX may want to expand and displace you too.
posted by ArtF on 2-28-2008 at 11:13 am
The focus of this article is meant to be neither political nor adulatory. I wanted to emphasize “huge”.
posted by Miss Cellania on 2-28-2008 at 11:19 am
Yes, I agree. They’re pretty darn big! The designs are impressive and anything but conservative. I don’t know if anything this big or “modern” would fly in many cities. Though here in L.A. we have that metal monstrosity, The Walt Disney Concert Hall :)
posted by ArtF on 2-28-2008 at 11:29 am
I was in Beijing last winter. The “Z” building was being built across the 3rd Ring Road from the office building I was working in. Even at that early stage of construction it was impressively huge!
posted by Sara on 2-28-2008 at 12:57 pm
Yes, Ira…I wonder how their dissident imprisonment facilities compare to ours.
The days of America being able to take a holier-than-thou attitude with the rest of the world have come to an end over the last seven years.
posted by David on 2-28-2008 at 1:34 pm
re: David
Yes, because nothing questionable happened on behalf of the USA before Bush was president. As in every country and every society, questionable things have happened over the last seven years, as they did in the 224 years prior to that. Don’t let politics get in the way of your brain.
posted by kate on 2-28-2008 at 2:08 pm
I was legitimately curious if they cleaned up their prisons in anticipation of foreign scrutiny - I didn’t anticipate the thread derailing like this.
Now let’s get back to being awestruck at how effectively these monolithic facilities meet the day to day needs of the Chinese people!
… just kidding!
… or am I?
… yeah I am.
… OR AM I?
posted by Ira on 2-28-2008 at 2:18 pm
I’m as big a critic of the government in the Peoples’ Republic of China as anybody but I think that we should put aside our differances for a little while. That’s what the olympics are all about or is it?
posted by John P on 2-28-2008 at 2:21 pm
The entire 1972 Israeli team agrees with you, John P.
posted by Ira on 2-28-2008 at 2:28 pm
While these buildings are quite impressive, it is impossible to separate these buildings from the politics which built them. This should not be ignored - to do so would be akin to admiring that huge hole in lower Manhattan while ignoring the reason why it is there.
Being a frequent visitor to this site, I am becoming increasingly dismayed at mental_floss’s willingness to simply glaze over both political and evironmental issues. I guess mental_floss is here to help us think, but not too hard.
posted by Florida on 2-28-2008 at 3:21 pm
Sorry to continue this thread, but I really must respond.
Kate: Meh…ok. In the scheme of things, the last seven years under Bush don’t compare to, say, the extermination of the native American population. I stand by my comment, though. Despite the crimes of our country’s past, we’d somehow managed to build a reputation for taking the moral high ground, and had built up some currency of respect with our allies around the world. Bush has done more to reverse that trend than any president I can think of. We’ve gone from being a country that is seen in the world community as valuing freedom and morality to one that locks people up for years without charging them with a crime, that tortures our prisoners, and that preemptively attacks other countries while lying to its own people about the reasons.
In the last few thousand years of human history these acts may be insignificant. My point was that we cannot legitimately continue to criticize other countries for doing the same things that we ourselves are doing. We’ve lost the moral high ground.
This is the keystone of Bush’s legacy.
posted by David on 2-28-2008 at 4:24 pm
I doubt they’v spruced up the dissident prisons, it isn’t like they’re taking CNN there.
And Miss Cellania, this was a great post. Also everyone should take note that China is building an ENORMOUS new embassy in Washington, right across from the Israeli embassy in Van Ness, should be something to see when it’s finished.
And come on, the Israel 1972 comment was a bit harsh.
Now for the rant: That being said, I think it’s perfectly legitimate to point out that China is trying to put a good face on its atrocious government policy for the Olympics. Just think about the environmental disasters being perpetrated by their dam projects, or their repression of free expression (including the internet, people!), their quiet destruction of non-Han Chinese cultures like the Uighur Turks of Xinjiang (western china out near the Kazakh border) who are seeing their whole way of life dissappear because they happen to sit on China’s youngest oil field and right in the way of China’s newest oil pipeline (and let’s not even go into Tibet).
This isn’t about being holier than thou. I criticize the United States for all that it has done and I don’t refer to China as “the yellow peril”. But they are an oppressive, authoritarian regime that is doing great damage to their own people, and to the environment of Asia, and while I know the Olympics are a time for brotherhood and global understanding, it would be disrespectful to the Olympic spirit to gloss over China’s repression during this time of heightened global scrutiny.
posted by Julia on 2-28-2008 at 7:24 pm
Beautiful but this should not distract from their horrible abuse of their citizens. China really doesn’t deserve to have the olympics, not until they ammend their policies.
posted by Television Spy on 2-28-2008 at 11:53 pm
Speaking as an ex-pat in China…(I really hope they don’t start blocking this site, that would be a shame.) China has been “gearing up” to the Olympics for years now. As we’re getting closer things are more noticeable. More and more websites are being blocked (and really some with NO obvious reason whatsoever), new laws and regulations are being handed down, Skype calls to regular phones only work from 8pm- 8am (really, that one’s just annoying), plane flight costs are going up- especially for this summer, and inflation is just skyrocketing. A lot of it isn’t directly related to the Olympics, but it’s more of a cause and effect thing. Sometimes we’ll hear of something new happening and someone will go, “Oh yeah, it’s because of the Olympics.” And I live REALLY far away from Beijing. (like the other side of the country) I’m sure it’s worse the closer you get to Beijing.
Now, China has its “interesting” quirks (they do monitor the internet, and I do like my job…) but it’s not all bad. So, I do have some problems with previous posts.
Julia- while I admit that China has not always treated the minorities (non Han peoples) well (and as for T*bet, well, I won’t even go there- again, I like my job), they are starting to move in the right direction. I live in the province where they shoved all the minorities during the Cultural Revolution (part of the bad), so I see a LOT of minorities- like every day. There are struggles, but China’s not getting rid of them, in fact, they are allowed to have more than one child. (2, usually, sometimes 3) There are a lot of programs out there that help specific minorities, and while most of them are western based, the great majority of them slowly turn over the control to the local people. Most of them are from poor villages, they can’t read or write, and heaven forbid they have some kind of disability! But, change is coming, slowly but surely, education is being brought into the villages, they are learning marketable skills, etc.
It’s not perfect, China’s not perfect (what country is??) and while there’s a long way to go, they are slowly taking steps forward. (sometimes they go 2 steps back, but at least they’re trying) Lest we forget, China is 3rd world country. This is not the US, or Canada, or some European country hosting the Olympics; don’t expect the same things done in the same way. You may not agree with everything that China does, but let’s not berate the whole country because of it.
Sorry this was so long, but I thought that someone ought to stand up for China at least a little bit.
posted by greenstrawberries on 2-29-2008 at 2:14 am
nice
posted by Jonathan on 2-29-2008 at 7:10 am
@Miss Cellania-
Yes, these structures are each huge & imposing, but so was Albert Speer’s vision for the (ahem) “Thousand Year” Reich. Among other collossal structures, his “Volkshalle” was to have a dome height of ~300 meters and would have fit 150,000 people therein. My point is that big does not necessarily = good.
Any word of Red China has adopted Speer’s Theory of Ruin Value?
posted by Sid Morrison on 2-29-2008 at 8:23 am
Beijingâs Olympic Building Boom | Deliggit.com
\r\nWeve been reading about Chinas construction plans for years, and wondered whether
posted by Deliggit.com | The social sites' most interesting urls on 2-29-2008 at 1:58 pm
@ greenstrawberries
I live and teach at a college in rural Guangxi.
Thanks for your post.
So true!
posted by Megan on 3-2-2008 at 8:52 pm
Thanks for your post, Miss Cellania! It’s a great consolidation of all the beautiful structures!
And greenstrawberries, I agree with you :) It’s really hard to manage such a big country and expect things to work all at once!
posted by simin on 3-23-2008 at 12:00 am