Speer's work on the 1936 Berlin Olympics projected Germany's revival as a super power. His 74-year-old son, also Albert, was commissioned to create a master plan for the Olympic zone to the north of the city that connects it to the heart of the capital.
He devised a broad, green boulevard along the ancient north-south axis of Beijing, which leads directly from the Olympic Green down past the Bird's Nest and Water Cube, about 15km to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square.
He strongly rejects the "unfortunately unavoidable" comparisons with his father's master plan for Hitler's capital, which was never realised.
"What I am trying to do in Beijing is to transport a 2000-year-old city into the future. Berlin in the 1930s - that was just megalomania."
"OK, I'll formulate grandiose designs for the Olympics, but I'm not wearing a double breasted suit, goddamit!!"
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