By Finlo Rohrer
BBC News Magazine
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London's Olympic venue has been unveiled with much fanfare, but what do national stadiums really say about the countries they are in?
A bit of grass, a running track, perhaps a sandpit.
This might be the non-sports fan's take on a national stadium, but these nexuses of the sporting world can mean much more than that.
Whether the legacy of an Olympics or a World Cup, or as the first major post-independence public building project of a new state, they are often meant to convey a message as much as simply play host to a team. Stadiums can be an expression of national mood and ambitious intent, or political dogma.
Some can, like Lord's cricket ground, be written into the mythology of teams from other nations. Some, like Chile's Estadio Nacional, can become associated with political oppression.
And even those countries that do not possess them, like the United States or Spain, the very absence of a national stadium can speak volumes about the power of regional identity.
LONDON'S OLYMPIC STADIUM - SYMBOL OF SUSTAINABILITY?
The London organisers don't want a white elephant
London's Olympic Stadium is unique in that it will effectively be the national athletics stadium, but only for a matter of weeks.
The newly-unveiled design for an 80,000-seat stadium is conceived so that when the games are finished much of the superstructure will be dismantled to leave a 25,000-seat venue, mainly for athletics and the use of the local community.
Normally national stadiums seek to deliver the "wow" factor, but London aims to impress on a more modest scale.
"This is not a stadium that is going to be screaming from the rooftops that it's bigger and more spectacular," says project architect Rod Sheard. There will be some who will welcome Sheard "embracing the temporary".
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London's Olympics stadium
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Ellis Woodman, architecture writer for the Daily Telegraph and Building Design, is one of those who is not impressed. The outcome is the inevitable result of picking HOK Sport, "the yellow pages choice" to design it.
"Design has never been at the forefront of this. It is probably one of the most architecturally underwhelming stadiums there has ever been."
But he acknowledges that the organising committee are at least trying to tackle the age-old problem of Olympic stadiums.
"They are only ever full on three occasions - the opening ceremony, the closing ceremony and the final of the men's 100m. The London games are being sold to us as sustainable games."
This sustainability manifests in the manageable small-stadium legacy and the usual environmental concerns about minimising carbon emissions and encouraging public transport use.
But one of the most striking ideas is that the fabric used to "wrap" the stadium will be cut up and sold as bags afterwards. A stadium that symbolises the tradition of the hand-me-down perhaps?
BEIJING NATIONAL STADIUM - SYMBOL OF POWER?
Beijing's smog could hide the stadium's "wow" factor
By comparison, Beijing National Stadium's pursuit of the "wow" factor is unequivocal. The desired effect is for first-time visitors to struggle to rejoin their jaw to the rest of their head. While London aims primarily to function, Beijing wants to impress.
Already dubbed the Bird's Nest, the massive stadium - a collaboration between a Chinese artist and Western architects - is covered in an intricate lattice of steelwork.
"It is an absolutely extraordinary piece of work. It has been conceived on an epic scale, mind boggling. If it's going to be a white elephant, the Chinese don't seem to be overly concerned," says Woodman.
It's easy to see the stadium as a symbol of China's increasing dominance of the economic sphere, and its desire to translate this into a more prominent place in world affairs.
"It's impressive for a number of reasons. It seem to be more than a stadium. Most stadiums look like fairly inert structures. This one looks like it could be moving towards you. Everything around it looks weak and flimsy," architecture writer Mark Irving says.
Fans walking in will see flashes of black and red through the steel cage. But the metal lattice is not merely decorative, with many of the girders either load-bearing or being used to hold other elements in place.
"What's unique is that it doesn't have a facade and a roof. The structure and the facade are the same thing," Irving notes.
But however much praise the building might earn, it has one major problem - it is often shrouded in a dense smog from Beijing's millions of cars. There have been fears for some time about the welfare of both fans and athletes.
"It is a Herculean feat of engineering, diplomatic patience and architecture, but may be defeated by athletes falling down dead with heart attacks," Irving says.
The location of the stadium will test the power of China's regime. Can they stop traffic or will it prove a Canute-like task?
WALES' MILLENNIUM STADIUM - SYMBOL OF PASSION?
The "jewel on the Taff" is surprisingly compact
The Millennium Stadium has hosted some memorable sporting occasions, from the Welsh rugby union team clinching the Grand Slam against Ireland in 2005 to the football team beating Italy in 2002.
But long after its steelwork has rusted away, it may be that it is remembered for the noise that can be generated within.
Setting foot within it for the first time, many fans are surprised by how compact it is for a venue that seats 75,000. Steep sides rise to create a cauldron-like venue, the perfect setting for the impromptu choirs that tackle Cwm Rhondda.
"It doesn't rank particularly high in the architectural elegance stakes," says Richard Weston, professor at the Welsh School of Architecture. "It shows all the signs of being done in haste and to a fairly tight budget. In terms of the elegance of structure, in terms of the ways the different pieces join, it is seriously flawed.
"On the other hand it is one of the most exciting stadiums to be in. The ultimate quality of the architecture it is not what we are there for. Most stadiums are not that great from the outside."
The stadium did run over-budget. A dispute with the neighbouring rugby club over the demolition of a stand led to late redesigning and enhanced the compact feel of the stadium. But compared with the travails across the border with Wembley it got off lightly.
And it was the building of Wembley that amplified the status of the Millennium Stadium in its early years. With the old Wembley demolished the FA Cup was moved to Cardiff, and despite the occasional difficulties in getting there, football fans loved it.
While England struggled to finance, build and complete a national stadium, Wales had constructed one that would serve itself and its neighbour with relative ease. And it had managed to do so in the centre of a bustling and regenerating capital city.
If it stands as a national symbol, it might be more as an icon of belief that Wales can deliver international-standard public projects, and need never be in the shadow of its neighbours.
ENGLAND'S WEMBLEY STADIUM - SYMBOL OF THE SOUTH EAST?
Wembley has a magnificent arch and a terrible pitch
If Wembley is testament to anything, it is to the tricky nature of completing a large building project in 21st Century England, and to the increasing dominance of the South East in all spheres.
Supporters have been trying to cement its status as the "home of football" since its opening in 1923. But while a non-Glaswegian can accept a national stadium in Glasgow, and a north Walian would have to concede that south Wales might deserve to be the home of football, there has never been a consensus among English football fans.
"I'm not a fan," says Daily Telegraph football correspondent Henry Winter, who played in the charity match that was first on the new Wembley turf.
"Football doesn't belong to the South East it belongs to the nation. England are playing Croatia on a weekday at 8pm. If you are a football mad father and you live in Jarrow, you've got no chance. It is a real pity."
After the eternal-seeming saga of its construction, there has been relatively little written about its performance as a venue.
Many who have attended matches have left surprised at how well it functions as a venue. Ignore the £10 portions of fish and chips and the drab concrete of the surrounding area, and it's a place where the queues for the toilets are reasonable, the view is unimpeded and you can get in and out safely and reasonably quickly.
Even those who don't think it looks beautiful would have to at least admit it looks striking.
"It is sensational when you look at the arc," Winter says.
But criticism of Wembley will probably never end. Its enemies will shift focus from the bad pitch, to the amount of corporate seating, to the transport or to the fact that it is in London at all. Such is the lot of an English national football stadium.
FRANCE'S STADE DE FRANCE - SYMBOL OF ELEGANCE?
Paris's Stade de France is widely admired
When it was unveiled in 1998 for the World Cup in France, the Stade de France prompted six words from English fans watching on television - "why can't we just have that?". There were plenty who would happily have seen a copy of the extraordinary stadium in St Denis transplanted in place of a demolished Wembley.
"The Stade de France is so elegant as a piece of engineering," says Weston. And that is the word most commonly used about the stadium with its "floating" roof.
For French football fans, it will always be associated with their team's 3-0 humiliation of Brazil in the 1998 World Cup final, a triumph that seemed to unite a nation behind a squad held up as a symbol of multiculturalism.
But there are dissenting voices about this stadium much-loved by architects.
"Among rugby fans there is a lot of nostalgia for Parc des Princes," says Ian Borthwick, rugby writer for L'Equipe. "They feel they've lost the intimacy. They recognise it as a spectacular, almost majestic, building, but it has lost its human touch."
It suffers from the "curse of the running track", the problem created by having to accommodate athletics facilities at the cost of moving fans away from the pitch.
And its location in the Ile de France is a rundown post-industrial area, unlikely to endear itself to visitors, whatever the "wow" factor of the building itself.
But it is still a symbol of effortless Gallic cool, whatever the dynamics of the crowd.
This is not a stadium that is going to be screaming from the rooftops that it's bigger and more spectacular 
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