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Beijing
National Stadium
The Beijing National Stadium, also known as the bird's
nest, will be the main track and field stadium for the
2008 Summer Olympics and will be host to the Opening and
Closing ceremonies.
In 2002 Government officials engaged architects worldwide
in a design competition. Pritzker Prize-winning architects
Herzog & de Meuron collaborated with ArupSport and
China Architecture Design & Research Group to win
the competition.
Contemporary Chinese artist, Ai Weiwei, is the Artistic
Consultant for design.The stadium will seat as many as
100,000 spectators during the Olympics, but this will
be reduced to 80,000 after the games. It has replaced
the original intended venue of the Guangdong Olympic Stadium.
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The stadium is 330 metres long by 220 metres wide, and is 69.2
metres tall. The 250,000 square metre (gross floor area) stadium
is to be built with 36 km of unwrapped steel, with a combined
weight of 45,000 tonnes. The stadium will cost up to 3.5 billion
yuan (~423 million USD/ ~325 million EUR). The ground was broken
in December 2003, and construction started in March 2004, but
was halted by the high construction cost in August 2004.
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