The China Water Cube Welcome Olympic Torch

The National Aquatics Center, or simply the “Water Cube,” a blue palatial structure with an area of 80,000 sq m, that was built alongside Beijing National Stadium in the Olympic Green for the 2008 Summer Olympics, completed January 28, 2008.

It is situated to the east of Beichen West Bridge on the North Fourth Ring Road and to the west of National Stadium. Underneath a pure and simple facade, this translucent building embodies a complex and unrestricted framework as well as environmentally advanced technology. It is a class piece of Olympic architecture that has become a landmark structure.

The Water Cube displays its transparent effects under colorful shining lights on Monday night, March 31, 2008, the same day the Olympic torch is welcomed to Beijing at Tian’anmen Square.

This is how it looks like on a normal night; a full moon illuminated in the distant sky beyond the brilliant, blue Water Cube.

The predominant features of the National Aquatics Center, also known as the “Water Cube,” are its bubbles, which give the whole venue a random, organic appearance. The Water Cube contains more than 3,000 inside cushions and 110,000 sq m of an outside membrane layer.