Beijing National Stadium

Beijing National Stadium
"Bird nest"
The Beijing National Stadium
Data
place	Beijing , People's Republic of China
Coordinates	39 ° 59 '29.6 "  N , 116 ° 23' 25.7"  E Coordinates: 39 ° 59 '29.6 "  N , 116 ° 23' 25.7"  E
start of building	December 24, 2003
opening	June 28, 2008
surface	Natural grass
costs	about 3.5 billion yuan (about 325 million euros )
architect	Herzog & de Meuron Arup Sport China Architectural Design & Research Group Ai Weiwei
capacity	80,000 places (currently) 91,000 places (2008)
Events
2008 Summer Olympics 2008 Summer Paralympics World Athletics Championships 2015 League of Legends World Championship 2017 Olympic Winter Games 2022

The National Stadium ( Chinese  國家體育場  /  国家体育场 , Pinyin Guojia tǐyùchǎng, commonly known due to the architecture and "Bird's Nest" ) is opened on 28 June 2008 the Olympic Stadium of the 2008 Summer Olympics and 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing . It is part of the Olympic Green (Olympic Park). During the Olympic Games, the athletics competitions , the final of the soccer tournament and the opening and closing ceremonies took place in the stadium . The stadium was the venue for the 2015 World Athletics Championships . It is also planned that the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2022 Winter Olympics will take place in the stadium. It was designed by the Basel architects Herzog & de Meuron .

draft

Interior shot of the stadium

The Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron , who already built the Munich Allianz Arena and Basel's St. Jakob-Park , designed the national stadium. In cooperation with the China Architecture Design & Research Group , Arupsport and the artist Ai Weiwei , they emerged as the winners of an international architecture competition in 2002. The building is 330 meters long, 220 meters wide and 69.2 meters high. The construction costs are around 3.5 billion yuan (325 million euros ). Because of its shape, the stadium has been nicknamed "Bird's Nest". Jacques Herzog hopes that “this building will be to Beijing what the Eiffel Tower is to Paris ”.

Construction work

The structure was built by the Chinese company CITIC Group . The groundbreaking ceremony was in December 2003, the actual construction work began in March 2004. As early as August 2004, the work was interrupted for half a year due to massive cost overruns, also due to the increased steel prices. After a re-planning, the transparent sliding roof, which should span the entire stadium, was dispensed with. The stadium now has an open oval measuring approx. 185 by 122 m in the middle.

The outer shell of the stadium is a 42,000-tonne twisted steel frame made from thousands of prefabricated parts. They weighed up to 350 tons each and were manufactured in steel works in Shanghai , about 1000 kilometers away . To reduce the stresses caused by temperature fluctuations, the outer shell of the stadium is separated from the core.

use

Indoor shot during the 2008 Olympic heptathlon

During the Olympics, the stadium had a capacity of 91,000, which was reduced to 80,000 after the event. According to the planning, restaurants, business premises and shops are also planned so that the building can be operated economically after the Olympic Games and continues to attract visitors. The final of the League of Legends World Championship took place in the bird's nest in autumn 2017 .

Criticism of the construction project

Ai Weiwei, the artist involved in the project, sees the government disregarding the original idea that he pursued with the stadium design. In his column for the British Guardian , he criticized the implementation of the draft by the Chinese government and announced that he would not attend the opening ceremony. Ai Weiwei also criticized the fact that the budget was exceeded.

documentary

• Bird's Nest - Herzog & de Meuron in China - documentary, France, Switzerland, 2008, 86 min., Directors: Christoph Schaub , Michael Schindhelm , production: T&C Film, arte , SSR , first broadcast, August 11, 2008. The documentary accompanied the Work by Herzog & de Meuron since the competition was announced from 2002 to autumn 2007. Formally, the film deals with “building between two cultures, two architectural traditions, two political systems”. Specifically, it is about the problems that the Basel architects Herzog & de Meuron had to overcome in every phase of the construction of the Olympic Stadium. The film also tells of the efforts to build a new district in Jinhua .

Awards

In 2009, the Beijing Olympic Stadium received the IOC / IAKS Award in gold, the only international architecture award for sports and leisure facilities that have already proven themselves in operation (new buildings, extensions or modernizations).

literature

• About the bird's nest . In: Lee Ambrozy (ed.): Have no illusions about me - AI WEIWEI - The forbidden blog . Verlag Galiani, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-86971-049-5 , pp. 129-130; 318-325

Web links

Commons : Beijing National Stadium  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• stadiumdb.com: Beijing National Stadium (Bird's Nest) (English)
• stadionwelt.de: picture gallery

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Die Welt : Architect's Dreams , November 7, 2007
2. Jump up ↑ Zeit-Online: Die Sinked Billions , (accessed on August 10, 2012).
3. ↑ pacific.network: The League of Legends World Championship 2017 will be hosted in China Article from February 8, 2017
4. ↑ Ai Weiwei: Why I'll stay away from the opening ceremony of the Olympics