To outsiders, then, Beijing’s urban master planning might seem questionable, and rightly so. How is it that big name architects like Herzog and de Meuron (designers of that rara avis, the “Bird’s Nest” National Stadium) and Rem Koolhaas (whose CCTV tower has all the subtly of the Death Star) are given such extreme creative liberties in a country where the individual expression of its citizens is routinely suppressed? What is the role of avant-garde design and its practitioners in rigidly structured political systems? And, while we’re at it, where are future host cities supposed to go from here?

Minna Ninova, “The Olympics and Urban Planning”