09 May 2008

The "Bird's Nest" Stadium






The 2008 Summer Olympic Games are just around the corner. They are to be held in Beijing, The People's Republic of China. In preparation for the upcoming evening, Government officials in the People's Republic engaged architects worldwide in a design competition. Pritzker Prize winning architects Herzog & de Meuron collaborated with Chinese artist, Al Weiwei, who is the artistic consultant for the design. The result is the "Bird's Nest" Stadium which will house the Olympic Games this Summer 2008. Above and below are photographs of the completed stadium. The final photograph, (below), shows the stadium under construction.

Construction of the stadium broke ground in December 2003 and was completed in March 2008. At a cost of $500 million dollars the National Stadium will be able to accommodate 91,000 people for the Olympics and 80,000 people post Olympics. The stadium is 330 meters long by 220 meters wide, and is 69.2 meters tall. The stadium uses 258,000 meters of space and has a usable area of 204,000 meters. It was built with 36 km of unwrapped steel with a combined weight of 45,000 tons. The stadium has some 11,000 square meters of underground rooms with waterproof walls.