Iceberg Palace Sochi, Russia sportsillustrated.cnn.com |
The 2014 Winter Olympics are a happy distant memory. Who didn't get a thrill over seeing your national team do well on the mountains, the sledding tracks, and on the ice. No doubt, Summer or Winter Olympics are a very big deal for the host country. An impending Olympics usually spurs a mad construction rush that can results in some very spectacular buildings like the Iceberg Palace in Sochi, Russia. What happens after the entire world leaves and the host city is left with the empty buildings? This the question that Anna Kats considers in her article "Sochi's Pop-Up Olympic Architecture Faces an Uncertain Future," for Blouin ArtInfo. This question is not unique to Sochi but it is something that all Olympic host cities, from the beginning of the modern Olympiad in 1896 onward, have faced and will continue to face in the future. For now, let's look at what the future could hold for the buildings of the Sochi Olympic Games.
Shayba Arena sportsillustrated.cnn.com |
Bolshoi Ice Dome, interior olympic.ca |
Fisht Stadium Populous planetminecraft.com |
Mountain Cluster teamusa.org |
Bolshoi Ice Stadium en.olympic.cn |
Beijing National Grand Opera House Paul Andreu fluxbuilt.com |
The Olympic Park buildings' uniform deployment of ubiquitous curvilinear forms clad in the equally common Modernist-inflected glass and steel is a nod to the international standard for contemporary corporate architecture. The prevailing use of architectural tropes was intended to suggest that the venues at Sochi were just like any other Olympic venue outside of Russia. Grigory Revzin suggests that the buildings were meant to be international in style, but not world-class architecture. Mr. Revzin references Herzog and de Meuron's Bird's Nest Stadium which drew international accolades during the Beijing Games. "Since the Olympics are meant to attract international attention, one would expect some kind of exceptional architecture for the event. We don't have of the sort among the Sochi stadiums." declared Mr. Revzin.
Fisht Stadium is slated to host the 2018 FIFA World Cup, in the meantime, some of the smaller venues within Olympic Park are awaiting permanent relocation to winter sports destinations in Russia. Rob Hornstra, a founder of the website The Sochi Project (http://www.thesochiproject.org) said, "I've heard that Adler Speedskating Stadium will be deconstruction and built up somewhere else in Russia. Mr. Hornstra is also the author of An Atlas of War and Tourism in the Caucasus and has spent the years working as a photojournalist in Sochi. The Kommersant reported in 2008, when construction began , Russian officials already planned to disassemble and relocate some of the smaller Olympic Park venues. Shayba Arena, built by the Ural Mini and Metallurgical Company, was intended to serve as a temporary structure, taken apart after the games, shipped and reassembled in Stavropol to function as the city's hockey and skating arena. Similarly, the Ice Cube Curling arena will be disassembled, shipped off elsewhere, and rebuilt into a mall. Naturally. Eventually, Sochi's subtropical climate and its identity as a former Soviet Union summer resort town will render the winter sports arenas completely moot. Perhaps they are better off in places around Russia that are more conducive to winter sports.
The Mountain Cluster buildings may not share such the same fate as the Olympic Park buildings. "There has never been a high-quality ski resort in Russia, it simply didn't exist, and now, even though it's not fully ready, the infrastructure for it is there," declared Grigory Revzin. Mr. Revzin dismissed the Rosa Khutor ski resort owned by businessman Vladimir Potamin as a "trivial" exercise in historical pastische and the nearby Mountain Village resort is "actually quite interesting." In both cases, Mr. Revzin believes that they will be popular with Muscovites, who are only a few hours away from the slopes rather than six hours and one visa application away from the Swiss Alps. Eventually the ski resorts will have to serve a post-Olympic clientele, which Mr. Revzin hopes will encourage local tourism. If Russia successfully moves the buildings, Sochi could be the first host city to find a solution to the vexing problem of what to with the venue buildings once the cheering stops. Which arena will be moved is undetermined, since authorities haven't drawn up in final plans. It could happen but then again, you never know in Russia.
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