Sports Architecture in Modern China

A comparison between 2008 Olympic venues and 1990 Asian Games venues

Introduction
Hosting the 2008 Olympic Games is monumental in Chinese history, almost a century ago, Chinese scholars dreamed of the Olympics being staged in China, which marks sovereignty and power of the country in a global view. Therefore, when the long time expectation is about to become real, the primary goal for Chinese government and citizens is to show the best part of China to the world. This paper focuses on what and how the Chinese have done in order to accomplish the mission of hosting a successful game. A number of Olympic architectures are reviewed in terms of their locations, the cultural meanings behind as well as their unique characteristics. At the meantime, in this paper I try to compare Olympic venues with their counterparts built for the Beijing 1990 Asian Games, due to their close relations, which I will further explain in the later session of this paper. I. Location of 2008 Olympics and 1990 Asian Games venues
An international comprehensive sports game usually consists of a main stadium, where the opening and closing ceremonies are held, and a village that multi-functions as accommodation, gymnasium, catering, etc. to athletes, trainers and officials, as well as other venues where various sessions of a game are hosted. To Beijing 2008 Olympiad, the location of the above buildings is extremely important, due to the unprecedented opportunity to welcome the greatest sports event in the world. The Chinese folks consider the Olympic Games too significant to randomly picking certain sites without blending in a bit of historical and cultural characteristics. 1. Locations of the Bird’s nest and Workers’ Stadium.
The Bird’s nest is located at the north part of Beijing, where major sports venues started being