Method Atelier

The 2008 Olympic games will be held in Beijing, China with high expectations for growth from Beijing’s economy watchers.  They are spending a bunch of zeros to help impress the world with their city’s skyline, roads, and subway lines.  The locals are very excited, awaiting, the arrival of thousands of athletes, reporters, and tourists already scrambling for memoriblia and other Chinese star embellished keep-sakes. Government-sponsored etiquette campaigns are working to stamp out bad manners like jumping ahead in line, spitting, littering and reckless driving. (LOL)  One “Green” thing that the city is doing is curbing one third of the city’s 3.3 million drivers during the 17 day event.  I think that’s pretty cool of them. 

The two centerpiece venues—buildings that will be talked about for years to come—are the Bird’s Nest National Stadium, a gargantuan bowl that seats 91,000, and the National Aquatics Center, also known as the Water Cube, a simple box design considered the Games’ “cool” building, with a translucent, blue-toned outside skin that makes the structure look like a cube of foam or bubbles.  I see you China, but it’s still about the “stars and stripes”.

-Ken Marcelle

Photographer: Satoshi Minakawa