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Olympic-size crisis of confidence hits Beijing?
The Ming Dynasty had the Forbidden City, and Mao had Tiananmen Square. Now modern China is constructing a new Beijing in their own image.
The Duck Egg - the new national theatre - is almost complete. The Bird's Nest, as the Olympic stadium has been called for its steel lattice-work, and the Blue Cube, the swimming pool complex, are rising. Elsewhere ever grander state buildings are materialising as they are stripped of their scaffolding. But just at the moment of glory, the new designs by celebrated architects from Europe and Australia have set off a major controversy. Public figures are criticising the billions of pounds being spent, while leading members of the architectural establishment have added their own complaint: there is nothing at all Chinese about them. No expense was to be spared: perhaps ￡40 billion is to be spent creating a new city. Leaving aside the venues themselves, there will be four new subway lines, an airport - designed by Lord Foster to be the largest in the world - and a new financial district. That is on top of the encouragement given to private developers to raze old neighbourhoods and replace them with apartment blocks. More than 300,000 people will be relocated.
Budgeted at ￡400 million, and designed by the Dutch avant-garde architect Rem Koolhaas, it resembles two upside-down Ls leaning against each other like a pair of drunks. It emerged that incoming prime minister Wen Jiabao, a man whose reputation was built on being down to earth and concerned for the poor, had called for a review. Eventually it was deemed too late to stop. But in the meantime the national theatre building was also under fire. Its controversial dome was the work of Paul Andreu, the Frenchman whose terminal building at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris suffered a fatal collapse in May last year.
Proposals for the Olympic village had so far been immune from criticism. Indeed, China took pride from jokes in spring 2004 that its Olympics would be ready before the Athens ones. But then even the International Olympic Committee began to get cold feet, and suggested that the city moderate its pace. Work on the Swiss-designed Bird's Nest stopped while its exorbitant use of steel - 160,000 tons, or 22 Eiffel Towers - was cut, by deciding not to go ahead with the sliding roof. The rebuilding is now on track again. But while many residents are resigned to the destruction of what remains of the Ming city, in return for modern conveniences, some in the establishment have begun to raise their voices. Wu Liangyong, a professor at Qinghua University, said the city was an "experimenting ground for foreign architects". "These buildings will be a scar left on the face of time, which will record our pains for ever," he said. "Once the land is used and this unreasonable urbanisation spreads, it is irreversible." In contrast to the early days of the Olympics, state media have allowed a debate, with even the People's Daily publishing attacks on the loss of the city's character. Even some of the defenders of the new buildings have pointed out that China, despite its Olympic-sized ambitions, was still too under-developed to have the expertise to design world-class buildings. Some issues, however, are still too sensitive. Few newspapers or architects mention the grand boulevard intended to connect the Olympic village to the city's historic centre.
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