Architecture Turns Us into 12-Year-Olds

In 2022, the FIFA World Cup will be hosted at last in the Middle East, and Qatar — the country that won the bid to host the tournament — has been hard at work building new stadiums. A few days ago, some of the plans by the design firm AECOM escaped, enabling the world to see what Qatar had in store for soccer fans the world over.

The greatest minds in design, engineering and architecture are unanimous: there’s no greater structure than that of the human vagina. Behold the stadium, with a 40,000 capacity, part of a $140 billion plan to prepare the country for the event:

AECOM claims the design for the new Al Wakrah stadium was inspired by “the dhow boat that carried generations of local fishermen and pearl divers.”

This recent wonder of architecture comes on the heels of the unveiling of People’s Daily headquarters in China, which rises into the Beijing sky like a massive erection. As with Qatar’s A Wakrah stadium, the jokes were endless. On the popular chinese microblogging website Sina Weibo, someone congratulated the Communist paper for “needing just 5 billion RMB to entertain the world.” (RMB stands for renminbi, and the sum equals around USD $900 million.)

In an interview earlier this year, the architect, Zhou Qi, said he was aware of the comparisons being made about the building and noted that the structure’s curves deflect wind and will help against the Gobi desert’s spring sandstorms.

“The beauty of architecture lies in giving people imaginative space, and this is something that’s hard for architects to predict,” he added.