Few cultural events bring the world together like the Olympics. Today, athletes from around the world continue to participate in a variety of competitions after the covid-19 pandemic. The Olympic Games are considered the world's foremost sports competition with more than 200 nations participating. In turn, they bring to question the role of architecture and design in each host city's urban evolution.
A central thread in the discussion of the architectural and urban impact of the Olympics is adaptive reuse and the ability to bring these venues (and their resulting infrastructure) to life during and after the games. The following articles explore the architectural, urban and social impacts of the Olympic Games, as well as a few case studies. Together, they explore what it means to invest in these large urban projects, and how their impact might be measured or reconsidered over time.
Cities are Avoiding Hosting the Olympics. They Shouldn’t.
The apple of every athlete's eye, the Olympic Games direct the gaze of the world onto one host city every two years, showcasing the best that sport has to offer across both summer and winter events. In a haze of feel-good anticipation, the general buzz around the city before during the four week stretch is palpable, with tourists, media and athletes alike generating contributing to the fervor. With almost an almost exclusively positive public response (the majority of Olympic bids are met with 70% approval or higher), the Games become an opportunity for a nation to showcases their culture and all it has to offer.
How London's Olympic Stadium Transitioned to Legacy Mode
Before it was even completed, the legacy of the Populous-designed stadium for the London 2012 Olympics was a thorny issue. Originally designed to be largely dismantled after the games, a sudden interest in the future stadium from local football teams led to an about-face by the government, resulting in a renewed brief for a design that could be adapted to host football matches. What followed after the games was recently described by The Guardian's sports correspondent Owen Gibson as "a huge, expensive engineering puzzle" in which "to all intents and purposes, it has been completely rebuilt."
How (Not) To Host The Olympics
Discover the ArchDaily Series on the Olympics and it's impact. Take the example par excellence, Montreal’s 1976 Stadium, nicknamed the “Big O” for its circular shape and the “Big Owe” for the amount of debt it incurred. A perfect storm of labor strikes, mismanagement, and complicated design (Rogert Taillibert‘s plan demanded an inclined, 175 meter tower to house the retractable roof), meant that – come Opening Day – the Stadium stood, tower half-built, roof non-existent.
Beijing 2022 Olympic Games: The Full Project List
Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games and Paralympic Games have officially opened on February 4, 2022. The Winter Olympics made a brave move by adding two snow zones in Zhangjiakou and Yanqing to the ice zone in Beijing, creating an unprecedented three-zone system for the Winter Olympics. Architectural Design & Research Institute of Tsinghua University (THAD), has led the planning and architectural design of the whole and all venues in Zhangjiakou Zone and Shougang Venue in Beijing Zone.
The Afterlife of Olympic Parks and Stadiums
Since their inception in 1896, modern-day Olympics have been regarded by hosting cities as an opportunity to project to the world a specific image of themselves, to subsidize large infrastructure projects, or to rapidly unfold redevelopment schemes. Past the frequently discussed eye-catching stadiums, there is a complex story of Olympic urbanism, which encompasses the large scale developments catalyzed by the event.
2016 Olympics: Two Legacies for Rio
The Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, as well as the FIFA World Cup, have been a driving force for the city. The word "legacy" being associated with major world events is nothing new. We see it used a lot when referring to the Olympics and the World Cup, and it’s come up time and time again in recent years when we look at the lasting effects these events have had on host cities like Barcelona (1992), Athens (2004), Beijing (2008) and London (2012). But who are the major beneficiaries of the "legacy" of the Olympic Games? Were the huge public investments worth it? Will there be any improvement for the general population? Can the equipment that was built be adapted for everyday use?
