(Pics) “The Bird’s Nest” - Beijing National Stadium: Olympics 2008
August 4, 2008
A glimpse at the Beijing National Stadium, one of the newly-built structures for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Completed in March 2008, the stadium earned its nickname “The Bird’s Nest” because of its radical steel structure which looks like a bird’s nest.
In 2002, the Chinese Government conducted a worldwide competition to choose the winning design. Architects Herzog & de Meuron collaborated with ArupSport and China Architecture Design & Research Group to win the competition. Contemporary Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei, was the design’s Artistic Consultant.
Occupying 258,000 square meters and seating 91,000 people, the stadium will stage the opening and closing ceremonies, athletics competition, and soccer finals of the Olympics.
It was built with 36 km of unwrapped steel, with a combined weight of 45,000 tonnes. It sports a retractable roof and bright-red concrete bowl for the seating.
More than $423 million was spent to construct “The Bird’s Nest”.
Some pictures (credits to Beijing2008.com):
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August 4th, 2008 at 7:27 am
Crazy Design. Looks like a partial collapse already