In the springboard of ideas for civic infrastructure and urban space, the two Asian giants — China and India — are at different stages of development. In an aesthetic race with European and American cities, China seeks only the best of the west. For roads, civic life, building design, park systems etc, architects, engineers and planners from all over the world are placing the Chinese city at the threshold of cutting edge design and technology. By comparison, the Indian city is created by administrative rulings. It has taken Delhi four years to begin physical action on the Commonwealth Games. Antiquated structural technology — as the one recently used to upgrade the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium — places columns in the middle of seating areas, thereby restricting a clear vision of the field. Many structures have to be over designed to compensate for graft and pilferage.

However, the 60,000 capacity Olympic ‘Bird’s Nest’ stadium in Beijing is measured by different parameters. An engineering marvel, the building has no structural counterpart anywhere. It sits in an ethereal landscape that is informed, innovative and as experimental in design as in engineering. The steel mesh that encloses it defies all the conventions of architecture and creates an unsettling sense of wonder and newness. Yet this framework is ingeniously conceived to contain everything within its eccentric pile: stairs, walls, roof, facilities, rainwater collection, passive cooling — even things not expected of a stadium. However west-derivative such a building, the Bird’s Nest has to be admired for its great leap, and its ability to chart an architectural future. Disagree you may with China’s ideology and harsh methods, but for public works, the Chinese model produces a more arresting and coherent landscape.

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