Bird’s Nest or White Elephant?

Travel Blog  •  Julia Ross  •  01.13.09 | 5:09 PM ET

Photo by AudreyH via Flickr (Creative Commons).

Say it ain’t so. A mere five months after the Beijing Olympic Games, has the Bird’s Nest stadium become a tourist trap? With no permanent tenant signed, that’s how it’s looking. I’m a big fan of the building and would happily pay the $7 fee to walk around inside, but at the same time hope the Chinese find a dedicated revenue stream to maintain it.

For a behind-the-scenes look at how the stadium was built, check out the documentary, Bird’s Nest: Herzog and de Meuron in China.  The best parts are the unintentionally hilarious culture clashes between the building’s two “make-the-trains-run-on-time” Swiss architects and their Chinese partners. You can imagine.

Tags: Architecture, Movies, Sports, Asia, China, Beijing, News and Briefs

Julia Ross is a Washington, DC-based writer and frequent contributor to World Hum. She has lived in China and Taiwan, where she was a Fulbright scholar and Mandarin student. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Time, Christian Science Monitor, Plenty and other publications.


1 Comment for Bird’s Nest or White Elephant?

Emily 01.14.09 | 9:47 PM ET

Oh dear! It would be such a shame (not to mention incredibly wasteful) to see this beautiful building go without use. I’m not sure who’s going to pay $430 for a replica torch kit, as the AP describes.

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