The play between huge concentrations of power and architectural will never ceases to amaze.

Swiss currency has corbusier on it

i think that particular shade of green/purple/blue is the actual color of the "chemically-enhanced" air in Beijing...

What exactly are you implying, Deacon? That Herzog and de Meuron work for money? That they have money with pictures on it in China? That countries put pictures of symbolic things like architecture on their money? That the Beijing stadium is a bad building?

agfa8x,
The currency used to carry an image of Mao, H&DM displaced Mao on the currency. That is kind of a big deal.

maybe its an improvement then.

antarctican banknote depicting ozone hole.
kind of like chinese stadium? i am for money that educates. imagine, everybody handles a banknote and message goes far.

what's the big deal? many of the bank notes shows their own building at everywhere around the world and they keep issuing for decades, unlike this one, only for collective items, so, is not really a currency theoretically.

regarding the displace Mao issue- Mao has been displaced every time they want to issue a limited edition for festival/sports event...

even they use the H&M building permanently, is just a symbol of power as it has always been through out history... i would rather see architecture as having true power for change.

jhooper mentioned that the swiss 10 note has Corb.

also, finland's 50 note features aalto and finlandia hall. i kept one of those last time i visited.

http://www.banknotes.com/FI118.JPG

before the Euro took over, i got a french franc note with cezanne and a belgian franc note with magritte, and kept those as souveniers.

Maybe this says something about nations which place artists and architects on their notes rather than politicians or royalty.

I might prefer to see FLW or the Wright brothers with an airplane on a US note rather than Alexander Hamilton, for example.

the wright brothers are on the back of the north (or is it south) carolina quarter...it's a start, right?

and although they are governmental buildings, we've got some architecture on the backs of our bills, no?

the way the building is dissociated from the ground suddenly makes it look like an appliance one would need after sitting on a fusili jerry.

scaled down, with its smoothness, it could be awfully comfortable in such a situation.

el jeffe - hilarious

mfrech - good point, i forgot about the quarter designs. it IS a start.

mfrech, the wright brothers first flew in kitty hawk, north carolina, however, as an ohioan, i want to point out that the wright brothers were born, raised, and built their first plane in dayton, ohio.

they tested their plane in north carolina because it happened to be the closest windy beach they could find...so i get a little offended when north carolinians claim 'first in flight' on their license plates and quarters...it's a touchy subject for me.