Beijing’s New Olympic Architecture – A Battle For Credit

Beijing is full of glitzy new buildings built for the Olympics. Some of the world’s most prestigious architects were recruited for the job. But “China’s preparations provoked an intense and unusually open debate here about the relationship between architecture and nationalism.In recent weeks, the Chinese press, in the sort of quasi-Orwellian turn it has nearly perfected, has begun to give primary design credit for the Bird’s Nest to the local architects who aided Herzog & De Meuron in executing it. Some news reports have excised the Swiss firm completely.”