More than 90,000 spectators will stream through its gates on Friday for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games; billions are expected to watch the fireworks on television. At the centre of it all is this dazzling stadium, which is said to embody everything from China’s muscle-flexing nationalism to a newfound cultural sophistication.

Expect to be overwhelmed. Designed by the Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, the stadium lives up to its aspiration as a global landmark. Its elliptical latticework shell, which has earned it the nickname the Bird’s Nest, has an intoxicating beauty that lingers in the imagination. Its allure is only likely to deepen once the enormous crowds disperse and the Olympic Games fade into memory.

In a site for mass gatherings, Herzog and de Meuron have carved out psychological space for the individual, and rethought the relationship between the solitary human and the crowd, the everyday and the heroic. However the structure attests to China’s nationalistic ambitions, it is also an aesthetic triumph that should cement the nation’s reputation as a place where bold, creative gambles are unfolding every day.

Until now, the number of memorable Olympic stadiums could be counted on one hand. There is Berlin’s 1936 Olympic Stadium, by Werner March, with its imposing ring of stone columns, a symbol of fascism’s absolute disregard for the individual. In an intentional counterpoint, Günter Behnisch and Frei Otto designed transparent tentlike roof canopies for the 1972 Olympic Stadium in Munich, daring in their structural innovation. And there is the elegant ring of slender Y-shaped columns supporting Pier Luigi Nervi’s Palazzetto dello Sport, which was a minor venue at the 1960 Games in Rome.

Monumental presence

But in Beijing, the architects were clearly striving for something more heroic. The centrepiece of a vast Olympic park in the northern reaches of Beijing, the stadium is raised on a mound of earth to give it a more monumental presence. Its matrix of crisscrossing columns and beams was conceived as a gargantuan work of public sculpture.

But the vision of the stadium as a gigantic social organism, rather than as a machine for mass hypnosis, is underscored by the architects’ plans for the building’s future. A vast shopping mall, demanded by the developer who collaborated on the project with the government, is buried beneath the stadium so that it will not disturb the serenity of the surrounding park.

Architectural history is littered with brilliant projects that were ultimately debased by clients who didn’t understand them — or understood them only too well. The Chinese government has already threatened to build a fence around the stadium after the Games. And the developer is considering a plan to create a boutique hotel on the stadium’s upper-level concourse. If that goes forward, the stadium could gradually be swamped by consumerism.

Nonetheless, amid the endless debate over the ethics of building in China, the achievement of Herzog and Meuron is undeniable.

Five Facts

Construction began on December 24, 2003

Occupying 258,000 square metres and seating 91,000 people, it will stage the opening and closing ceremonies, athletics competition and football finals

It cost 3.5 billion yuan ($500.7 million), used 42,000 tonnes of steel and involved the relocation of 4,707 residents from 2,043 households in the surrounding area

Construction was suspended in 2004 after complaints that it was costing too much. Some 9,000 seats, 12,000 tonnes of steel and the retractable roof were cut from the design. Further delayed for 14 weeks because, officials said, of the complexity of preparing for the opening ceremony

After the Games it will become the home stadium of Beijing Guoan Football Club and an auction will be held for the naming rights