MORE THAN 150 of China's leading scientists and architects have petitioned the Government against the futuristic design of Beijing's National Theatre by a French architect. But a spokesman for the project insists that it is going ahead as planned.
The design is of a translucent glass and titanium bubble nestling on a lake, with four auditoriums and 6,000 seats, designed by French architect Paul Andreu, and costing 4.7 billion yuan (about HK$4.4 billion).
On June 10, 49 members of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and China Academy of Engineering presented a petition saying that Mr Andreu's design was seriously flawed, from both the scientific and architectural point of view. 'It is a second or third-rate design with a super-class cost,' the petition read. 'It is like a worm that produces silk that ties itself in knots. Architecture demands a design that is practical and reasonable, economically efficient and respects Chinese tradition and reality.' According to the petition, the area of the project has more than doubled from the initial 117,000 square metres to 260,000, while the number of seats have been cut by 300. The cost of the bubble alone would be 300 million to 400 million yuan and that of electricity would be four million yuan per month.
The second petition, by 108 leading architects, was submitted to the Ministry of Construction on June 19. It also said the design was wasteful, pointing to the need to build a hole in the ground 40 metres deep that will be lined with steel frames, in order to support the building above. The size of the lobby and other common areas will lead to an expenditure of about 100,000 yuan a day on air conditioning.
'The design purports to be modern and hi-tech, but there have already been such projects in the West. It is typical of the 'high-production, high-consumption, high-pollution' concept common since the industrial revolution. What we need is a design that saves energy and protects the environment.' The second petition said that it would be difficult to clean the bubble of the sand, dust, snow and rain of Beijing. 'When it freezes in winter, it will be necessary to drain the water, so that it will look like a big egg sitting in the earth.' But the petitions have so far fallen on deaf ears. A spokesman for the committee in charge of construction says that work at the site is continuing on schedule, with excavation of the ground under way.
'We have received no instructions to change. We are working according to the original design and in line with the spirit of the central committee [of the Communist Party], saving costs where we can,' he says.