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Text | Don't forget Lu Zhuangyuan
Edit | Don't forget Lu Zhuangyuan
preface
The 2008 Olympic Games were the pride of the Chinese people and achieved a lot of achievements. In this Olympic Games, many things have been achieved, such as the establishment of the bird's nest. Today, the Bird's Nest has become one of Beijing's landmarks, with tens of millions of tourists coming to visit every year.
The construction of Olympic venues is considered by many to be a waste, such as the venues built during the Sydney Olympics, not only did not recover the cost, but also lost a lot, and finally could only be demolished and sold for money.
So, when the mainland spent 3.4 billion yuan to build the bird's nest, did the cost recover? Is it losing or earning now?
Beijing's successful bid for the Olympic Games caused the whole country to rejoice
In July 2001, when the host city of the 2008 Olympic Games was confirmed to be Beijing, all Chinese who learned the news burst into tears. This is a manifestation of the Olympic spirit, but also the Chinese people's love for the Olympic Games and their dedication to the spirit of competition.
At the same time, this is also the recognition of the mainland's comprehensive national strength and an affirmation of China's strength. All that's left is how to build the competition facilities.
Although the 2008 Olympic Games are still seven years away, hosting an Olympic Games is a complicated matter, and all aspects must be considered.
As the top priority of the Olympic Games, it is necessary to have a huge Olympic stadium, which must be large enough to accommodate tens of thousands of people.
Building a large stadium is not difficult to say, but it is not easy to say simple. The key is the specifications, the materials used, and the polishing of the details.
The first thing to consider is design, in addition to showing China's comprehensive national strength and letting the world re-understand China, the more important thing is to let more people understand Chinese culture and Beijing, so that Beijing can leave an indelible impression on the world.
Therefore, it is particularly important to build a very distinctive Olympic main building. Therefore, at that time, Continental issued a tender to the architectural design industry around the world, in order to find a very satisfactory design solution.
After a year-long screening, this difficult task finally came to an end, which is what we now see as the design of the bird's nest, proposed by the well-known Swiss architectural firm Herzog and de Meuron. It also notes their design philosophy of integrating architecture and nature into harmony.
Of course, it also contains Chinese cultural elements, combining Chinese caves with them to finally design what it looks like today. Once the design was finalized, the project to build the Bird's Nest Stadium was put on the agenda.
But then a new question arose - funding! Although the successful application for the Olympic host city is indeed a very proud thing, which can bring great fame and honor to Beijing, the most important thing to bring the Olympic Games to the characteristics of the city is to be unique, which requires a lot of money.
At this time, the designer team gave an offer to build the bird's nest, which is expected to be 3.4 billion yuan!
Hearing this figure, it really made many people feel silent, 3.4 billion yuan, which is not a small number, and it is still the price in 2003.
So in the face of different opinions, how will the official team in charge of the Olympic Games choose?
The establishment of the Bird's Nest cost 3.4 billion yuan
Some people think that spending so much money for an Olympic Games is completely unnecessary. And you need to know that this amount of money is only spent on building the nest, and there are various expenses that are not taken into account. Hosting the Olympic Games is a good thing, but if it is overly valued and delays the development of the people's livelihood economy, it will seem that the gains outweigh the losses.
After all, there are living examples in the previous Olympic Games. For example, the Montreal Olympics held in Canada in 1976 were forced to declare bankruptcy because they paid a high cost at the time of construction, but did not receive corresponding revenue, eventually resulting in a loss of more than $1 billion.
Coincidentally, the 2004 Athens Olympics cost more than $15 billion and ended up running a national deficit. Therefore, some people think that the cost is too large.
But if it is really built, it will definitely be beneficial, there is no doubt about this. However, how to recover the cost is particularly important, and the publicity team and the planning team need to work together to find a way.
After discussion, they set the tone for the construction. In order to highlight the concept of environmental protection and also to save costs, the entire nest was made of pure steel.
According to relevant statistics, the use of all steel exceeds 42,000 tons, and because of the different structures, welding also requires different technologies, especially some key bearing points. Not only that, the bird's nest also uses the world's most advanced steel, and the advantage of this steel is that the bearing capacity is very strong.
In order to complete this great project, tens of thousands of workers and hundreds of designers across the country performed their duties on site, and the construction process was mainly completed by manual welding and handling.
The most unexpected thing is that in order to increase the load-bearing capacity of the bird's nest, during this period, mainland engineers also specially invented a "bird's nest steel", the quality is very outstanding, for the future construction industry to provide a very powerful help, can be called "cross-era innovation".
Not only that, in the construction process, the role of the designer has also been perfectly played, while designing the bird's nest, it also integrates Chinese garden craftsmanship and a variety of Chinese elements, making the bird's nest have both oriental charm and international style.
The most shocking thing is that the entire bird's nest does not have a single column to bear weight, which is something that many buildings cannot do.
In March 2008, less than five months before the Olympic Games, the Bird's Nest project was finally completed, covering an area of 21 hectares with a floor area of 259,000 square meters, and the internal grandstand was covered in stainless steel and glass, providing 80,000 seats. Such a big deal also reflects the mainland's expectations for this Olympic Games.
Fortunately, the Olympic athletes lived up to expectations and achieved very good results in the competition, and the Beijing Olympics ended perfectly in everyone's attention.
But when the Olympics are over, what should the Bird's Nest do? According to the relevant team estimates, the annual maintenance cost of the nest is as high as 70 million! This is definitely a significant expense.
How this expenditure should be solved has become a key issue. So what should be done in the face of such a thing?
How should the revenue generation and expenditure problems of the nest be solved?
In fact, since the end of the 2008 Olympic Games, since 2009, the profit generated by the Bird's Nest has been unacceptable to many people, but it is only 210 million yuan. Although it is enough to cover the maintenance costs, it must be known that the mainland has invested 3.4 billion yuan in order to build the bird's nest.
If you want to recover these 3.4 billion yuan, just by generating more than 100 million yuan in income this year, it will also take more than 30 years, which is obviously not in line with the actual situation.
How to revitalize the bird's nest is particularly important. Otherwise, the mainland's Bird's Nest Stadium will eventually face the same outcome as the Sydney Stadium.
To this end, the team in charge of the Nest has also started the development of other additional projects for the Nest. The first step was to add a large number of new content such as the Olympic-themed exhibition area, the Bird's Nest wax museum, and the top sightseeing corridor.
Not only that, but the team also strongly invited celebrities to hold concerts in the Bird's Nest. For example, Wang Feng, Mayday, etc. have held their own concerts in the Bird's Nest.
And this also coincides with the idea of the concert organizer, because the seats and related facilities of the bird's nest are readily available and used at the national level, which largely meets the cost reduction needs of the concert.
In addition, some popular clubs abroad also like to hold warm-up matches and other activities in the Bird's Nest. For no other reason, the view of the bird's nest is quite good. No matter what position you are from, you can see all of the field.
According to 2018 statistics, more than 33 million tourists visit the Bird's Nest every year. At this time, the bird's nest has finally completed its magnificent transformation, from a project that barely maintains its own costs to a revenue-generating project, and has also become a famous landmark in Beijing.
epilogue
Today's Bird's Nest not only undertakes the needs of a national stadium, but gradually develops in the direction of diversification, becoming a multi-functional integrated platform integrating sports, tourism, business, culture and so on.
After more than ten years, we have witnessed the unremitting efforts of the Bird's Nest operation team, and today's Bird's Nest has become a postcard for Beijing to the world, and it highlights China's cultural confidence.
The Bird's Nest has long gone beyond the scope of a gymnasium, but a monument to witness the continuous development of the Chinese nation towards strength, and it is also the embodiment of the desire of countless Chinese children to realize the dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.