When the 2008 Summer Olympics opened in Beijing, everyone was already back home. In Munich. Some time earlier, the reporter was on a hill overlooking the “bird’s nest” that was still under construction. You couldn’t get any closer. The well-guarded national stadium, which the architects and Pritzker Prize winners from Basel, Jaques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, had devised as a filigree web of steel girders, also looked sensational from afar.
It seemed as light as a feather, like the delicate branches of a bird’s nest. But the outer shell alone weighs 42,000 tons. The stadium bears witness to a suggestive lightness and transparency, to a dynamism and openness that was in fact bought with a maximum of construction costs that soon became excessive and a maximum of building materials. Nevertheless, you sat in front of it and thought it was simply wonderful. So, pretty gorgeous.
So the Chinese tour guide who was keeping an eye on the architecture tourist in the country was paid what was seriously considered a compliment. They said something like this: Congratulations, you now have an Olympic stadium that is almost as beautiful as the one in Munich in 1972. The travel guide then had trouble with the praise, which to Chinese ears apparently sounded like a medium-heavy insult to ignore.
So who has the most beautiful Olympic stadium in the world?
Back then, people learned that the Chinese are at least as easy to insult as the Corsicans in the Asterix book. Therefore, one also knows exactly what one of the travel companions replied in all due sharpness. Firstly, he said, “our Olympic Stadium is the most beautiful in the world”. And secondly: “The next stadium for the next Olympic Games will then be even bigger, even more beautiful and even more expensive.” At least he said it with a laugh.
Higher, faster, further – in the sphere of Olympic architecture this often means: bigger, more beautiful, more expensive. At all times, the Olympic spectacles have often led to spectacular Olympic buildings.
Curling is now played in the “Ice Cube”, the venue for the swimming, diving and synchronized swimming competitions at the 2008 Summer Games.
(Photo: Greg Baker/AFP)
But if now, almost 14 years after the summer games of that time, the winter games are opened in the same stadium as they were then, i.e. again in the well-known bird’s nest, the tour guide’s prediction has not been fulfilled. Luckily, I have to say. Because what is now or is becoming a matter of course in the West, namely using the means of representative architecture in an economically and ecologically sensible way and not wanting to constantly reinvent yourself, is not quite so typical of China.
Nowhere else in recent decades has social change been illustrated by a similarly ambitious building program. Nowhere else have more signature buildings and window displays been built out of the ground. Nowhere else was a similar amount of concrete, steel and glass used. Architecturally, the huge Middle Kingdom was also considered a kingdom of unlimited resources for a long time. The star architects of the West raved about the determination of the Chinese builders (not hampered by too much democratic participation or environmental reports).
The sports buildings formulate a message: We are someone again
A number of sports buildings were also built – such as the bird’s nest as the national stadium, the national swimming center known as the “water cube” or the Wukesong indoor stadium. At that time, one and a half million residents of Beijing were resettled. Entire neighborhoods disappeared. Beijing became the largest construction site in the world. A number of landmark cultural buildings, a gargantuan airport (designed by Norman Foster) and eye-popping static adventures like state television’s CCTV Headquarters (OMA) have been rammed into the sand in a national effort ahead of the Games. Conceived by famous architects (rarely) and architects (often). They formulate a message for the country: We are someone again.
What is particularly noticeable at the beginning of the current Winter Games: Relatively little is noticeable this year. In Beijing itself, many stadiums that have been remodeled are simply being rededicated. However, new buildings such as the National Speed Skating Hall (Populous Architects, USA) already exist. In comparison, however, only a few fixed or even emblematic sports buildings have been built.
In contrast to the more temporary sports facilities. And also in contrast to infrastructure projects, which include the remarkable bridge in the form of crossing Olympic rings over the Gui River (Penda/Arup). The bridge, which also resembles a double helix, connects central Beijing and Zhangjiakou, the venue for the games. As an infrastructure, the bridge structure makes sense beyond the Olympics.
The Big Air Shougang is located in the vicinity of old cooling towers of a steel mill in the former industrial area.
(Photo: Jae C. Hong/dpa)
The Shougang area tells of the conversion. Where one of the largest steelworks in the world used to be located, as a prime example of Chinese planned economy and Chinese carelessness about the environment, the facility for freestyle skis and snowboards now stands. In front of the cooling tower skyline, the industrial heritage project is reminiscent of a mixture of the Zollverein colliery in Essen and the “Wunderland Kalkar”, where nuclear power became a tourist attraction. Which doesn’t mean that the games in Beijing are ones of modesty or even ecological transformation.
On the contrary, venues have now been created that run over everything that has to do with environmental awareness and nature conservation issues as quickly as lugers in a banked curve. The fact that the winter games are taking place in Beijing, which is not exactly destined to be a winter sports metropolis in terms of climate, makes as much sense as, say, a football World Cup in the desert. In this respect, it is at least to be welcomed that the Winter Games in Beijing are conspicuously inconspicuous, at least in terms of architecture and urban planning.