© 2026

For assistance accessing the Online Public File for KAXE or KBXE, please contact: Steve Neu, IT Engineer, at 800-662-5799.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

China Theater

NPR's Rob Gifford reports on a controversy over the design of a new national theater building in Beijing. Building a national theatre is a matter of great pride to the people of Beijing. The Chinese capital has no such facility and lags far behind the city of Shanghai in theatre arts. But many are upset over the design, by a French architect. It calls for something resembling a huge titanium egg, surrounded by the monolithic, very square Stalinist buildings that rim Tiananmen Square, the spiritual heart of the city.

Copyright 2000 NPR

Creative Commons License
Our stories may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. We ask that you edit only for style or to slightly shorten, provide proper attribution and link to our site. Please see our republishing guidelines for use of any other photos and graphics.