schneiderism

I’ve not been able to confirm this elsewhere, but ShanghaiDaily is reporting that only six months after opening for the Beijing Olympics, the Beijing National Stadium, or “Bird’s Nest”, is now going to meet the inglorious end of anchoring a shopping mall. This is apparently driven by the high costs of maintaining the stadium, and by the fact that there is only one event scheduled to be held there for all of 2009.

Somebody needs to send Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron a couple very strong drinks about now. I cannot imagine that this is a desired end for this project of theirs.

I had written about the design of this building a few times previously. I have greatly enjoyed the many incredible pictures taken by toomanytribbles during her time in Beijing.

If you cannot identify the two buildings above you’ve been living under a rock. Both have graced the covers of just about every mainstream magazine and newpaper in the last year, not to mention my own obsession not just with the bird’s nest and watercube pictured above, but also with the CCTV Tower. Architecture in Beijing has been very, very hot with not only a rolodex of high profile architects present, but some incredibly innovative design and use of materials.

Over the last year a favorite blogger, toomanytribbles, has captured stunning images of this new Beijing architecture as it was completed prior to the olympics being hosted in Beijing last summer. You can see more of her work on her Flickr page. The image above was taken by toomanytribbles from the Ling Long Pagoda, and for it she employed the very cool effect called tilt shift. I love it.

Beautiful photographs of the Olympic flame burning atop the Beijing National Stadium, the “Bird’s Nest,” with the moon appearing to be singed as it passes through the flames. The image above was taken by toomanytribbles, and is one from a series of photos of this nicely timed opportunity. Click to check them out as her photography is excellent. Most of the images I have used here to feature the new architecture of Beijing have been snapped by toomanytribbles, and I have especially enjoyed her periodic pictures of the CCTV Tower during construction.

That would be 44,000 tons of steel and the equivalent of $423 million in construction cost. The Beijing National Stadium (pictured above in a gorgeous photo by toomanytribbles), often referred to as Herzog & de Meuron’s “Bird’s Nest”, is essentially completed after four years of very high profile construction. Though Herzog & de Meuron are usually given credit for the design, credit in fact goes to the incredibly effective team made up of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, ArupSport, and the Chinese Architecture Design and Research Group in collaboration with the team from Herzog & de Meuron. Regardless, this is an incredible project to have pulled off.

It’s a stunning structure. The massive yet delicate quality of the steel skeleton seems to defy the enormous scale of the building. The image below is a detail of the steel super structure while under construction:

I love this image below with the light glinting off of the steel at night: