The National Stadium is the main stadium of the 29th Olympic Games. Located at the Olympic Green, it has a floor space of 258,000 sq meters.

On Oct. 25, 2002, an international competition was held to seek the conceptual design of the National Stadium in Beijing. In March 2003, a 13-member judging panel comprising well-known Chinese and foreign architects, architectural commentators, sport specialists, structure specialists, experts in Olympic organization and operation, representatives of the Beijing municipal government and Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) selected three excellent design proposals, with the "bird's nest" standing out due to its unusual style.

In April 2003, the "bird's nest" designed by Swiss architecture firm Herzog de Meuron, ARUP consulting company and China Architecture Design and Research Group won the competition following strict evaluation and public vote.

The National Stadium is co-owned by the Beijing State-Owned Assets Management Co. Ltd (BSAM) who shares 58 percent of the total assents, and the China International Trust and Investment (CITIC) Consortium who holds the rest of 42 percent, with foreign funds accounting for 25 percent. The National Stadium Companycomposed of BSAM and CITIC, is responsible for financing, construction, operation and management of the National Stadium.

The CITIC Consortium comprises CITIC Group, the Beijing Urban Construction Group (BUCG), the Golden State Holding Group of the USA and the CITIC Group affiliate Guan Elstrong.

The open invitation-to-bid process for the project's ownership started in April 2002 and lasted for eight months, eventually seeing CITIC Consortium excel the other six short-listed bidders. On August 9, 2003, CITIC signed a series of documents with the Beijing municipal government, BOCOG and BSAM.

BUCG, a special-class construction company in China, is the contractor and constructor of the National Stadium. It is supervised by BOCOG, an intermediary agency and people from all walks of life. The original Swiss-Sino architect group was employed as the National Stadium's designer. Meanwhile renowned companies VINCI and Bouygues of France were invited to be managing consultants, and HOK and some other companies were invited to be its design advisors to ensure the quality of the project.

The main body of the National Stadium is an interwoven structure comprising a series of steel trusses around the bowl-shaped stands. The structural elements support each other and converge into a grid formation, just like a bird's nest with interlocking branches and twigs. The spaces in the skeleton of the stadium will be filled with inflated ETFE cushions.

With a seating capacity of 91,000, the National Stadium will host the opening and closing ceremonies, track and field competitions and football finals during the 2008 Olympic Games. But the seat number will be reduced to 80,000 after the Games, when it will be used for large-scale sport events, conventional competitions and non-competition events. As a national landmark sport and entertainment facility, the stadium will meet residents' wide-ranging sport and cultural needs.

Construction on the stadium kicked off in December 2003. The concrete work of the main stand was finished on November 15, 2005, and on August 31, the steel skeleton of the stadium was welded together.

The National Stadium is scheduled to be completed at the end of 2007.