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Years prior to his departure from his home country, Ai famously consulted on the design of the venue hosting Friday night's opening ceremony: The Beijing National Stadium, or "Bird's Nest."
But the artist distanced himself from the project and criticized China's hosting of the Olympics ahead of the opening ceremony, believing it to be a propaganda tool at odds with what he felt were the oppressive realities of life in the country.
— CNN
Ai Weiwei originally conceived of the stadium as an inspirational structure that carried a message to China and the rest of the world about the potential for democracy within his home country, but the still-in-exile artist now says that the symbolic uses of the building are being warped into an... View full entry
Herzog & de Meuron have the widest approach to architecture varying their style for each job. In this sense they epitomise the global search for an architecture of pluralism, one flexible enough for very different cultures...The high quality of the work is as notable as the wit; the amount of production as much as its personality. -RIBA President Stephen Hodder — architecture.com
Herzog & de Meuron, whose works include the recently approved yet controversial Tour Triangle in Paris and the redevelopment of Berlin's Tacheles cultural center, received the 2015 RIBA Jencks Award for being a practice "that has recently made a major contribution internationally to... View full entry
Ai Weiwei has never set foot inside the [Bird's Nest].
He told NPR that the stadium has become entirely divorced from ordinary people.
"We love this building, but we don't like the content they have put in, the kind of propaganda. They dissociated this building [from] citizens' celebration or happiness, [it's] not integrated with the city's life," Ai said. "So I told them I will never go to this building."
— npr.org
The attached photos were taken by me on a recent trip to Beijing. View full entry
