Beijing National Aquatics Center 北京国家游泳中心

2008 turned out to be a banner year for China. She was thrust into the spotlight and unprecedented worldwide attention because of they were host to the 2008 Summer Olympics. Huge sums of money was spent on sprucing up the entire city and it includes building totally new facilities for the Olympic events. The result was a impressive array of new structures here in the Olympic Sports Center. One of the buildings which received most of the attention was the Beijing National Aquatics Center 北京国家游泳中心. As you may already know, this place served as the venue for all the swimming events.

The National Aquatics Center has a very distinctive design, it was built as a square (when viewed from above) to contrast against the round National Stadium nearby. The building was then covered in large plastic bubbles. The material used is a very tough kind of plastic and it results in a very fitting design for an aquatics center, resulting in its new and very apt nickname, the Water Cube 水立方. As it turned out, there was an entrance fee to go in the Water Cube, which I was not willing to pay for. I heard that it was turned into a water park after the Olympics.

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