Beijing 2008
from Domus 860 June 2003
Herzog and de Meuron’s stadium will be the defining architectural
image of the Beijing Olympics.
Despite the SARS epidemic that is threatening to derail China’s economic
boom and undermine the authority of its political leadership, the Chinese
government is determined that nothing will stand in the way of the
successful staging of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
China is using the games to signal that it has moved beyond its
sweatshop economy, characterised by low-wage commodity production,
bicycles, social conformity and corruption. To this end it is pressing ahead
with a building programme that is ambitious even by the feverishly
overheated standards of exploding Asian cities.
The Chinese were still concealing the true extent of the SARS outbreak in
April when they announced that the competition to design the Olympic
stadium had been won by Herzog and de Meuron. They were more
forthcoming about the epidemic by the time the shortlist for the
competition for the Olympic pool was unveiled in May. But they were still
determined that construction would begin on the stadium this year. In
fact, with a reminder of the authoritarian planning methods of the Mao
era, they had already set a precise date and time: December 24 at 10
am. And work on the pool is scheduled to start even earlier, with the date
and time announced before the architect was actually selected.
The pool and the stadium are just two of the major projects underway in
the Chinese capital. Rem Koolhaas has won the competition to design a
headquarters building in the form of a cluster of towers for Chinese
television. And Albert Speer is busy promoting his plan for a 24-
kilometre-long north-south axis for Beijing, running all the way from the
Olympic site in the north, where Herzog and de Meuron’s stadium will
occupy a prominent position on a slight hill, to a huge new railway station
in the south.
Stung by previous criticisms of its sometimes murky approach to the
allocation of construction contracts, Beijing’s municipality has been
proclaiming its determination to pursue design excellence and maintain a
transparent and fair tendering process. This is why the competition had a
somewhat unwieldy 13-strong jury, whose members included seven
Chinese experts alongside Jean Nouvel, Rem Koolhaas, Kisho Kurokawa,
José Luis Mateo and Benedetta Tagliabue. Also on the jury was
Dominique Perrault, who was also a finalist in the swimming pool
competition, in which he was up against Norman Foster, Shin Takamatsu,
Rafael Viñoly and others.
Although the shortlist included Vittorio Gregotti, it was mainly
characterized by the usual collection of firms known only by their initials,
which have come to dominate international stadium design by turning out
an interchangeable series of huge spectator machines that can process
crowds quickly and efficiently yet lack personality or charisma. In this
context, the appointment of Herzog and de Meuron may be seen as a
sophisticated choice. It demonstrates that China has reached the stage
where it does not need to do the obvious thing. In so doing, the Chinese
have secured a structure that will undoubtedly upstage Sydney’s Olympic
stadium, with its now-conventional arrangement of structural masts.
Beijing will have the most memorable stadium since Frei Otto’s tents for
Munich.
A retractable roof can be
used to close the stadium for
indoor events and in poor
weather. Herzog and de
Meuron deliberately avoid a
technocratic structure
An open concourse distributes
spectators to the three
seating tiers
In the stadium the audience
becomes the architecture
Herzog and de Meuron
deliberately avoid a
technocratic structure
