National Stadium

Beijing National Stadium, universally called the Bird's Nest, was built for the opening and closing ceremonies and the athletics events of the 2008 Summer Olympics and inaugurated on 28 June 2008. The design by Basel architects Herzog and de Meuron with Chinese artist Ai Weiwei wraps the bowl of 91.000 seats in a lattice of 42.000 tonnes of structural steel, intertwined like twigs in a nest and apparently random, yet engineered so that each member takes its own share of the load. In 2022 the Bird's Nest also hosted the opening and closing of the Winter Olympics, making it the first venue ever to host both summer and winter Olympic ceremonies. Since the Games it functions as a tourist attraction with occasional concerts, football matches and snow festivals. The neighboring Water Cube and the Olympic Green are part of the same set piece.