[Image: Beijing 2008 copy, wikipedia /Artwork: designslinger]

Tomorrow are the opening ceremonies for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. There has been a media
frenzy in China coverage the past few weeks with most of the reports about the changes in the country, the innovative architecture, and the physical alterations to Beijing itself, rather than the games themselves.

Because of the existing overwhelming concentration of reportage on these topics I see no need to
rehash any of it. But, since this is a blog about design, I have to at least make mention of one of the decades most important moments in architecture and urban planning, if not the next several decades of design.

[Image: Hummingbird in a tree; Beijing National Stadium, "The Birds Nest," berkeley.edu /Artwork: designslinger]

There are, already, the iconic Olympic structures: the "Birds Nest," officially the Beijing National
Stadium, or the "Water Cube," which is the nickname for the National Aquatic Center. There are two buildings of note that aren't tied into the Olympics but have been constructed simultaneously, the National Center for the Performing Arts, or "The Egg," and the headquarters of China Central Television. I'm not sure why this building hasn't been given a name less "Peoples Party" national sounding - yet.

[Image: Soap bubbles; National Aquatic Center, "Water Cube," xiaming via flickr/Artwork: designslinger]

All of the new building happening around the country is astonishing, and in Beijing, estimates are
that over one million people have been forcibly "relocated" (my quotations) to provide building sites for the Olympics, as well as thousands of new high-rise apartment towers, roads and subways. This fact has been controversial, and the Western architects who have participated in the building explosion have had to walk a fine line between the celebrity status that has been thrust upon them, and their selling out to a repressive Communist regime.

China is the new world empire rising, and with their worldly introduction tomorrow, it will be
interesting to see if we will be as intrigued by the performance of the athletes, as we will with the buildings they perform in.