The exterior of the theater is a titanium accented glass dome that is completely surrounded by a man-made lake. It is said to look like an egg floating on water, or a water drop. It was designed as an iconic feature, something that would be immediately recognizable.
The dome measures 212 meters in east–west direction, 144 meters in north–south direction, and is 46 meters high. The main entrance is at the north side. Guests arrive in the building after walking through a hallway that goes underneath the lake. The titanium shell is broken by a glass curtain in north–south direction that gradually widens from top to bottom.
Like the so-called Bird’s Nest,’ The Egg.” As this bulbous glass-draped opera house is called,might cause passersby to think yet another spaceship has landed in the capital-this one near Tian’anmen square. Indeed,its close proximity to the Forbidden City and the Monument to the People’s Heroes coupled with its un-feng shui design and soaring costs($324.6 million) have earned it the sort of hostile welcome reserved for an alien invasion.
Architect:French-born Paul Andreu,who designed the groundbreaking Terminal 1 of Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport in 1974
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