Beijing National Aquatics Centre

Beijing National Aquatics Center

Water Cube
The National Aquatics Center, with the Beijing National Stadium in the background
Building information
Full name	Beijing National Aquatics Center
City	Beijing, China
Capacity	17,000
Built	2004–2007
Opened	2008
Construction cost	yuan ￥940 million USD $ 140 million EUR € 94 million
Architect(s)	PTW Architects, CSCEC, CCDI, and Arup
Main pool
Length	50 m (160 ft)
Width	25 m (82 ft)
Depth	3 m (9.8 ft)
Lanes	10

The Beijing National Aquatics Center (simplified Chinese: 北京国家游泳中心; traditional Chinese: 北京國家游泳中心; pinyin: Běijīng guójiā yóuyǒng zhōngxīn), also officially known as the National Aquatics Center, and colloquially known as the Water Cube (Chinese: 水立方), is an aquatics center that was built alongside Beijing National Stadium in the Olympic Green for the swimming competitions of the 2008 Summer Olympics. Despite its nickname, the building is not an actual cube, but a cuboid (a rectangular box). Ground was broken on December 24, 2003, and the Center was completed and handed over for use on January 28, 2008. Swimmers at the Water Cube broke 25 world records during the 2008 Olympics.

After the 2008 Olympics, the building underwent a 200 million Yuan revamp to turn half of its interior into a water park. The building officially reopened on August 8, 2010. It will host the curling events at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

In July 2003, the Water Cube design was chosen from 10 proposals in an international architectural competition for the aquatic center project. The Water Cube was specially designed and built by a consortium made up of PTW Architects (an Australian architecture firm),Arup international engineering group, CSCEC (China State Construction Engineering Corporation), and CCDI (China Construction Design International) of Shanghai. The Water Cube's design was initiated by a team effort: the Chinese partners felt a square was more symbolic to Chinese culture and its relationship to the Bird's Nest stadium, while the Sydney-based partners came up with the idea of covering the 'cube' with bubbles, symbolising water. Contextually the cube symbolises earth whilst the circle (represented by the stadium) represents heaven. Hence symbolically the water cube references Chinese symbolic architecture.