Ai is a man of many talents. He is a leading and, as it turns out, an amusingly laconic artist. He was part of the great batch of filmmakers who enrolled in the Beijing Film Academy in 1978, along with, for instance, Zhang Yimou, director of the Olympics opening.

He was design consultant with the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron for the Bird’s Nest, but has been periodically critical of it and at one point claimed that he was so wary of being rude at having reporters ask him the same questions about the design that he was planning to flee Beijing during the Games. But today he is here, to talk about Becoming, his documentation with photographs of the construction of Terminal 3.

Foster says his design is a celebration of travel. And the grandness allowed to him while conceptualising the airport, he says, is anchored in the frenetic construction in the city. But Ai Weiwei keeps drawing more out of Foster than just praise for the boldness of Beijing’s decision-making and strategic investment in infrastructure.

What kind of afterlife may the airport have, Weiwei forces Foster to consider. And when asked about designing talking-point buildings against a grey sky, Foster counters with observations that Beijing has been amazingly greened. Weiwei draws laughter by saying, single-toned: “We are working on the weather, and I’m sure you’ll see some blue days. I hope you’ll enjoy the blue days.”

So, what’s the afterlife for the Bird’s Nest, he must be asked later when it’s polite to stray away from the subject of the morning. “I’m sure it’ll be well-used,” he says. And no, he does not feel any sense of ownership of the marvellous structure of latticed steel.

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