The Beijing National Aquatics Center, better known as the Water Cube, is an aquatics center that was built alongside Beijing National Stadium in the Olympic Green for the swimming competitions of the 2008 Summer Olympics. Despite its nickname, the building is a cuboid (rectangular box), not a cube. Ground was broken on December 24th, 2003, and the Center was completed and handed over for use on January 28th, 2008. Swimmers at the Water Cube broke 25 world records during the 2008 Olympics.

The Water Cube was built with donations from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan compatriot as well as overseas Chinese. It was chosen through public appraisals as one of “China’s ten big new architecture views” by The U.S. magazine "Business Weekly". The iridescent bubble wrapped rectangular box shaped structure won the 2011 National Science & Technology Progress Award, First Class, for its deliberate morphing of molecular science, architecture and phenomenology that can create an airy and misty atmosphere for a personal experience of water leisure.