Bird´s Nest

The New York Times has published a lengthy feature story about new architecture in China, focusing on the trials and tribulations of Swiss architectural firm Herzog and de Meuron that designed the 'Bird's Nest', the futuristic-looking stadium that will be the main stadium for the the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

NYTimes.com:

The China Syndrome Published: May 21, 2006"Everyone thinks this is the most remarkable piece of architecture we have ever designed," the architect Jacques Herzog told me months before in Switzerland, where he lives. "To realize that project there is amazing." It defies expectations to see this avant-garde building rising in China, and yet, Herzog had remarked, "such a structure you couldn't do anywhere else."For architects, China is the land of dreams.(...)Hungry architects are drawn to China by the abundance of economic opportunities. But Herzog & de Meuron, the Swiss firm that designed the stadium, doesn't need to drum up business. It has more work than it can handle. What attracted the firm's leaders to China is an openness to audacious projects, which they attribute to the lack of timidity and inhibition in the people there. "They are so fresh in their mind," Herzog says. "They have the most radical things in their tradition, the most amazing faience and perforated jades and scholar's rocks. Everyone is encouraged to do their most stupid and extravagant designs there. They don't have as much of a barrier between good taste and bad taste, between the minimal and expressive. The Beijing stadium tells me that nothing will shock them."(...)

Finding new ways to invoke an ancient tradition within a modern context is the intellectual challenge that animates the work of Herzog & de Meuron in China. There are many approaches to the problem, most of them awful. At the onset of the Beijing building boom in the late 1980's, the city's mayor preferred that skyscraper architects tip their hats to the Chinese past. All across town you can see tall buildings capped by absurdly historicist roofs in the style of the Forbidden City. "If you wanted it approved, you had to add a big roof," says Cui Kai, the chief architect of the CAG. "That's a very simple way to connect modern and traditional. Herzog & de Meuron are doing it in a much more interesting way."(...)

"I would rather have this experience than to ask too many questions and be too careful and miss the experience," de Meuron says. "Being confronted by this culture, you mix new experiences in your own work. The ambition is to discover new ways of developing architecture."(...)

The bulldozers began moving earth while the architects at the CAG were cranking out their preliminary drawings for approval. New drawings had to be prepared while the earlier ones were still being reviewed. "Every day, they needed drawings"(...)

As time was running out, he waited and waited, until finally the government requested that he remove the retractable roof. The decision saved 15,000 tons of steel. Strangely enough, the desire to mask the support structure of the retractable roof had been an initial link in the chain of thinking that eventually led to the "bird's nest" design. The roof would have been an engineering triumph, but without it, the overall form became more graceful.(...)

The office also facilitates the asking of a vital question that shadows every choice: How Chinese is it?During his three-day visit to Beijing in March, de Meuron met with the firm's local architects. At this advanced stage of the process, the design of the steel structure and the concrete bowl was already determined. In the gap between the two, the architects have inserted a hotel, a shopping mall, a convention center and some areas intended to be open at all times to the general public. "What we think is the strength of this project is the space in between, the concourse, which is to be filled with life," de Meuron told me. "In Beijing, even in this harsh climate, the people use the public space — to dance, to play cards — unlike in Germany or Switzerland." Between the red-painted concrete and the silver-painted steel, he envisioned a continuous pageant.Most of the unresolved issues pertained to the design of the stadium interior. The stadium architects had set up lighting prototypes and tile samples for de Meuron to examine. The most elaborate model was an undulating wall section, projecting several inches and covered loosely with red silk. It was under consideration for the V.I.P. reception room.(...)

"And also the color," the woman said."Not the right red, or should not be red?" de Meuron asked her."In China, we don't make public areas red," she replied."But we made the whole stadium red" (...)

De Meuron turned reflective. "We are Swiss," he said. "Switzerland is a very small country. The first big-scale project we did was the Tate, the Turbine Hall. For us, it was a big step. Will it function? I think it functions very well. It is not oppressive. I think the same goes for this stadium, so this huge structure is not oppressive. The way we accomplished that was with the membrane and the bird's-nest idea." He favored a similar approach for the V.I.P. welcome room. "It is a large space; it should remain large, but we don't want to be oppressive," he said. "I am not sure the walls will be that important."He cast another fond look toward the wavy red silk model. "I think this is beautiful," he said. "Maybe we will use it somewhere else."