The Stadium

 

This brilliant pamphlet was written prior to the London 2012 Olympics but stands as testament to the whole project and its legacy since. It describes how the Olympic stadium by architects Populous has been designed to be dismantled. Not just adapted, altered or re-purposed, but reduced in scale and diminished in purpose. In so doing, it stands as a unique insight into the history of Olympic buildings. Of course, like every Olympic stadium before it, the primary function of the 80,000-seat arena was to host the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2012 Games as well as the track and field events. Unlike any before, though, its appearance derived from a secondary function. 

From the wide, white-steel diagonal cross-bracing on its lower tier, and the narrower band of cross-bracing on the upper tier in the same painted steel, to the twin-legged floodlight stands that crown them both, the entire aesthetic is based upon the intention to demount the stadium down to a 25,000-seat athletics venue after the event. It is clear that the stadium has been designed not only to be dismantled but to look like it can be dismantled. 

The short book, described in the Guardian as “fascinating” explores the fundamental dilemma at the heart of the Modern Olympics movement. This issue does not necessarily inhibit good architecture, the 1932 Los Angeles Coliseum, Berlin’s 1936 Olympiastadion, Tokyo’s 1958 “Metabolist” stadium are all excellent.. What makes the London 2012 stadium problematic is that the organisers have attempted to pre-determine a minor future for its stadium. 

While other temporary structures across the site have a role in ensuring the Queen Elizabeth Park is an ongoing success. The stadium is different. The basic tenet of the London organisers’ vision for the structure is that it will become a less impressive, more scaled-down version of itself. This reductivist approach, however, has come up against the human dynamic towards building and as Abrahams predicted before the 2012 Olympics it would be cannibalized in the future to become a football stadium.

 

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Also read Play The Game; the story of how and why the London 2012 Olympics came to be

AUTHORS


Tim Abrahams

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