Behind Beijing’s icons…and how what we see on TV will be different than what Chicago wants to build for the 2016 Olympics

Posted by JJ on Tuesday, August 5, 2008

The Skyline | Chicago Tribune | Blog - The Olympics are a real event in a real place, but they are also a high-voltage television show, capable of conveying powerful—and possibly, distorted—messages about the host country through the buildings that frame the contests of “faster, higher, stronger.�

Never will be that more apparent than next Friday, with the opening of the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, where spectacular architecture will play a leading role on a stage set that differs dramatically from the one Chicago proposes to erect for the 2016 Summer Games.

If the smog that has shrouded Beijing in recent days mercifully deigns to lift, television cameras will have a clear shot at some of the most eye-popping new structures on the planet…

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