Every major sporting event leaves behind a legacy. Just so the toil that goes to make it a success is remembered for a long time to come.
Take for example our own Delhi, or rather New Delhi. Asian Games in 1982 in November there transformed the city altogether. The sporting venues apart, India saw Delhi changing like never before through a slew of road flyovers.
Today, 26 years later Delhi is again undergoing facelift to hold the October 2010 Commonwealth Games, notable of which is the rapid spread of the metro to nearly every nook and corner of the city. The fast expansion of the city has rendered it a new name, NCR or the National Capital Region.
Talking of legacy, Beijing 2008 will perhaps be remembered for the Bird’s Nest Olympics Stadium. It’s already inspired so much awe that at least 33000 images of it are available on the net when I searched for it in Google.
Agreed many images are the same, yet the stadium seems to have garnered the majority of limelight for an event that is unarguably the biggest sporting extravaganza on the planet.
I’ve collected the following 2 images of the main stadium. It reminds me of the thrillers that show spacecraft entering/exiting giant underground complex. The second picture below shows that there is a pair of semi-elliptical lids on the top of the stadium that can close the opening at the top.
As a Kolkattan I’ve one reason to feel proud of. The highly-acclaimed Swiss architecture firm, Herzog & de Meuron, who has designed the Bird’s Nest Stadium, is also designing the upcoming art museum at Rajarhat, christened KMOMA.
A small change for Herzog and its team, but a big boost it is to Kolkata’s prestige.
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