The buildings constructed in Athens for the Olympic Games four years ago are fly blown, closed to the public and covered in graffiti, a forewarning of the possible aftermath of the London Games in 2012. Telegraph | very related...
Of the 22 venues in the city, 21 are in a state of disrepair and under guard to prevent vandalism...
The only open venue is the former badminton stadium, which has been transformed into a theatre, which has hosted Swan Lake on Ice and Jesus Christ Super Star...
A spokesman for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, said: "Our Games will be truly sustainable in that we are only building facilities that can be used after the Games.
10 Comments
Unfortunately, this is not old news. All over the world the Olympic venues have historically been rushed, expensive and then the promises of post-Olympic use falls through.
This is why the most interesting part of HOKs and Peter's proposed venue is the modular and semi-nomadic nature of the venue they are proposing. Although i fear Beijing has set the bar so that (with regards to iconic structures) that many countries will be forced (if only out of pride) to follow..
oh no!;.))
oh, yes! please!
of course nam. the olympics is a way for the host country to show off, and what better way to do that than build icons?
montreal's olympic stadium was prominently featured in the will ferrell & john heder feature film about pairs ice skating Blades of Glory:
that's a pretty worthwhile use of a former olympic venue
moreover, the expos and alouettes have played many games there too...that should count for something, right?
here is another example; this time stadium was build ahead of the game in order to get the olympic bid on the readiness of the venue... lost the bid to beijing, needless to say.
ataturk olympic stadium was built hastily in 2001 costing tons of money and the biggest event hosted was uefa champions league final in 2005. since, it has been used by minor istanbul clubs under 1/10 th. capacity. and occasional national match. it had some wind problems which they tried to fix with additional wind panels, roads were under capacity causing traffic blocks miles long.
olympic stadiums are not very good for soccer matches (biggest spectator sport) since they put the spectators to a considerable distance from the pitch. that is why all the major soccer clubs build their own stadiums specifically for soccer in mind.
i understand the advertisement value olympic games bring with them, but there is also a fundamental problem with that, making poorer countries never ever host such an event. why not have olympics in vietnam, Ecuador, tunusia, for example?
i liked it when games were in los angeles, they gussied up usc art deco stadium with small capacity and it worked great.
it is so wasteful to build all these buildings only to abandon them after the games.
have spent the past five years in beijing watching the transformation of this city and i don't think we'll see construction on this scale for the olympics by any country again anytime soon. quite simply, what other country has the cash and absolute authority to spend what china has on the olympics, let alone the opera house, cctv tower, etc. regardless of whether they're government or corporate sponsored.
wealthy states don't have the will to orchestrate and poorer states don't have the resources to spend, on such spectacles and rightly so. consider the mass games in north korea:
http://www.astateofmind.co.uk/
this is an awesome movie.
The London Olympics will turn that city into a 100% police state.
So many laws have been passed allowing all sorts of intrusion into people lives, all in the name of terrorism.
I wouldnt want to be within 100miles of the place.
london isn't the best use of location for the games.
personally, i think that detroit (and possibly windsor in a joint american/canadian venture) could be an excellent use of the games. the games would be an excellent impetus for the investment in large scale transit overhaul that detroit desperately needs...and possibly stronger connections (bridges/tunnels/ferryboats?) across the river too.
well whether it is successful or not remains to be seen but it seems that london are taking the future development of the olympics site seriously - they have initiated the 'olympic legacy masterplan' which takes a long term look at a much wider area. There's an example of this in the RIBA journal this month.
For this reason i'd disagree with puddles - it's almost as if they are using the olympics as just a good excuse to implement a massive regeneration of very deprived areas in east london
and i'm sure i read somewhere that some of the buildings can be 'downsized' after the games by stripping out the extra capacity and leaving at the core a venue of more manageable size...?
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