The Bird's Nest is dirty
"Look at your shoes and T-shirt: where do they come from? Should you be trading with China?" That's what Jacques Herzog asked a journalist who questioned him about working with the Chinese regime. The quote is from a piece of puffery titled "Men in the News: Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron" that appeared in the Financial Times at the weekend.
What's in this for the FT? Only asking because in the preceding weekend's edition, there was an article by Simon Kuper titled "Bird's Nest offers Beijing a chance to prove its mettle". It concluded with this piece of jaw droppery: "But Herzog knows that the Bird's Nest was built with cheap labour and that residents were displaced to make way for it. But China is changing, he says. The Bird's Nest itself is 'a little part of transforming China step by step. Because I don't think there is anything more politically powerful than to offer potential for people to use it as a public space. It's the most dangerous political situation, and that's amazing that the Chinese let us do this.'"
Steven Spielberg was slated to produce the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Games, when Mia Farrow asked him, "Do you want to be remembered as the Leni Riefenstahl of the 2008 Olympics?" After brushing up on China's role in Darfur, Spielberg, to his eternal credit, did the right thing and pulled out. None of that hollow humbug about "the most dangerous political situation" from him.
