National Centre for the Performing Arts

This guide to the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing follows architect Paul Andreu's egg-shaped titanium and glass dome from an unsettling coincidence: a fatal roof collapse at his own Paris airport terminal, just as this dome was under construction beside Tiananmen Square. It covers the safety review that followed and the years and billions of yuan over budget it took to finish. Enter the way most visitors do, through the tunnel that passes beneath the lake itself.