Venues of Asian Games to boast local flavor

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By Qiu Quanlin (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-04 09:43

GUANGZHOU: Venues to be built for the 16th Asian Games will feature the architectural style of Lingnan, or South China, to better promote sports culture, an official of the Games' organizing committee said yesterday.

"We have attached great importance to the combination of local architectural style and the sports functions of new venues in terms of design and construction," Peng Gaofeng, director of the organizing committee's venues department, said.

Prior to the opening of the Games, as many as 12 new venues would be built and a number of old facilities renovated, Peng said.

Lingnan-style architecture, like qilou or arcade building, is one of the typical new styles of Chinese architecture, emphasizing surroundings and the humid climate in South China.

The cycling stadium located in the university town of Panyu district, for example, was designed with an overshadow arcade from east to west and window ventilators from north to south, making it look like the ancient qilou buildings in downtown Guangzhou, designer Lin Dongna from the research institute of Guangdong said.

The stadium is "The overshadow arcade and window ventilators are designed well in line with the local climate characters," Lin said.

Peng also said the Asian Games' organizing committee would not reprise last year's Beijing Olympic Games and by spending excessive amounts of money to build or renovate sports facilities for the event.

In another development, Peng said the organizing committee had set up a special work group to deal with issues regarding use of the venues after the Asian Games.

"New venues are not only designed just for the Games next year," Peng said.

A stadium in the Asian Games Town in Panyu district, which will host the gymnastics, billiards and squash events, will become a mega business plaza and a museum displaying the Asian Games' history, Peng said.