Sunand Prasad, President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, noted that the list of finalists was the most outstanding in terms of composition in 4 years of the award's existence, so it was not easy to determine the winner - and, at the same time, it was obvious.
According to the jury, the National Olympic Stadium will for a long time become the personification of 2008 - as well as the emblem of China's transformation into a superpower. Buildings bearing such an important and multifaceted semantic load are extremely rare - and the stadium in Beijing, in addition, also perfectly fulfills all its various functions.
Two other Beijing buildings were shortlisted for the award - Terminal 3 of Norman Foster International Airport and the National Aquatics Center of the PTW Bureau, as well as the Brandhorst Museum in Munich "Sauerbruch Hatton", Dublin Center Sean O'Casey "O'Donnell & Toomey" and Representation of the British High Commissioner in Colombo Richard Murphy.
The prize bears the name of Berthold Lyubetkin (1901-1990), an architect born in Tiflis who studied at VKHUTEMAS and introduced the principles of modernism to Britain in the 1930s.
