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The geopolitical analysts all agree that China is about to become the next superpower: it is a question of when, not if. Its capital city, Beijing, is a place with proud traditions, a fabulous trove of architectural masterpieces, an increasingly modern infrastructure and a fiercely ambitious drive. Make no mistake, Beijing, a place that fifteen million people call home, is destined to become the world city of this century.

In the past year or so, the city has unveiled a series of astonishing, even outlandish, contemporary buildings. The reason for all the frantic building activity is this year’s Olympic Games, which for China is far more than just a sporting event. The leadership of the world’s last remaining major socialist nation views the August extravaganza as a coming-out party, an opportunity to show the world that China has progressed to become a key 21st-century player. The infrastructure revamp is the largest the capital has seen since the Ming Dynasty, some 600 years ago, when the gargantuan Forbidden City was erected. Visitors will experience the new Beijing immediately after touchdown, walking off the plane into the new, Sir Norman Foster– designed Terminal Three, an airy glass and steel structure that is one of the largest buildings on the planet. Foster allowed his fertile imagination to soar, as did the other big-ticket architecture names commissioned for major state-funded projects. The distinctive shape of the main Olympic stadium, a series of criss-crossing and interlocking steel girders, has earned it the nickname the Bird’s Nest the nearby swimming complex, with its striking modular panels, has been dubbed the Water Cube. The other new skyline arrivals have been quick to earn irreverent monikers. The China Central Television headquarters consists of two towers leaning at drunken angles, joined at the top, a design made possible only by the technological advances of recent years. Locals call the structures the Trouser Legs and are divided whether the Rem Koolhaas design is a gloriously inventive piece of architecture or a piece of flippant whimsy.

Opinion is likewise divided on the Egg, the unofficial name for the new national theater, designed by French architect Paul Andreu. It does indeed resemble half a high-tech eggshell, a surreal impression that is accentuated by its geographical proximity to staid and utilitarian Stalinist-era structures, notably the Great Hall of the People. The titanium and glass theater, half of which is underground, is a stone’s throw from the Ming-era imperial pomp of the Forbidden City.

Ancient and modern, experimental and conservative: all are part and parcel of 21st-century Beijing, a city that has muscled its way to the forefront of important world players. Just two decades ago, it was a dour and uninviting place, with barely the budget to light its streets, restaurants where dinner was served promptly at 6 p.m. and zero nightlife options.

It is still run by an authoritarian regime—a Communist military dictatorship, in fact—and any kind of dissent is dealt with quickly and often brutally. For all that, Beijing has discovered its appetite for a party; the architectural extravagance is a very visible symbol of its forward-looking attitude.

Modern the country may be, but it is the ancient wonders that are likely to bedazzle visitors. Beijing has a collection of significant historical sights that no other Asian city comes close to matching; the Great Wall, an hour or so from Beijing, is merely one entry in its vast catalog of truly amazing places.

In the absolute center of Beijing is the world’s largest square, Tiananmen, said to be capable of holding a million people, and the Forbidden City, the enormous compound where the all-powerful emperors once lived. It was where the new emperor, communist dictator, Mao Zedong, announced the foundation of the People’s Republic of China, in 1949; the totalitarian government is still in power more than half a century later, now the world’s only remaining major Socialist nation.

China is Marxist–Leninist in name only. The capitalist genie is well and truly out of the bottle, as visitors will discover as they witness a city with swanky stores, upscale hotels and increasingly outward-looking residents.