The post-Olympic city

What happens to a city after the Olympics are gone? This question is asked frequently these days, now mostly concerning the East London area. The exhibition on The Post-Olympic City, opened today in Storefront, New York, tries to answer this question.

“The Olympic City” is an ongoing project by Pack and Hustwit that looks at the legacy of the Olympic Games in former host cities around the world. Since 2008, Pack and Hustwit have sought out and photographed the successes and failures, the forgotten remnants and ghosts of the Olympic spectacle. Thus far they’ve documented Athens, Barcelona, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Montreal, Lake Placid, Rome, and Sarajevo, with plans to document Beijing, Moscow, Berlin, London, and other Olympic cities.

London olympics 2012 – inauguration

The games have begun!

After years of planning, building and preparations the Olympic Village has been inaugurated and is now fully functional. For the period after the games, a legacy plan has been drawn up. The utility of the venues, infrastructure and accommodations is to be guaranteed by downscaling of the stadiums, reuse of the hotels as apartments and further redevelopment of the East London area.

The first frustrations of the event have already floated to the surface as well:
Local residents complain about missiles and other military equipment installed on their roofs, for security purposes, while taxi drivers complain about the exclusive VIP traffic lanes, reserved for IOC personnel and sponsors. The Olympic cauldron had to be extinguished and lit again in order to move it out of the way on the opening night. And a great number of the temporary seats in the Aquatics Centre does not seem to have a clear view of the dives, due to the curved roof. Architect Zaha Hadid however is not to blame, they say, since it concerns the temporary seats and tickets should not have been sold for those seats during diving sessions. Anyway, all of these troubles will be over after the spectacle.

For the period after the games, many doubts were raised regarding the gentrification of the East London neighborhoods of the already rather hyped Hackney Wick, and the traditional working class neighborhoods Tower Hamlets and Newham. What will happen there, when the athletes are gone, remains to be seen. As yet, the Shard, now the highest tower in Europe, designed by Renzo Piano and located in Southwark, is still largely vacant. Smaller and more flexible projects are mushrooming in the Olympic area, such as the White Building, a refurbishment of an old industrial building by architect David Kohn.

The Shard building

The White Building

Does the Olympics bring sustainable developments to East London and will they bring long term jobs to this area plagued by unemployment? Will gentrification of the East lead to a less segregated London? We’ll take a look at the site again at the end of the games and see what happens.

In the mean time, have a look at ‘London’s Loss? Why Hosting the Olympics Is Bad Business’ – Time

Or take a look at the Olympic Village in Google maps:

London Games open larger map

Inside MAS Antwerp

Museum aan de Stroom (MAS), meaning as much as riverside museum, is the new heart of a formal dock area and neighborhood called Eilandje (island) in Antwerp. The area went through a huge transformation over the last ten years, including intensification with apartment blocks, renovation of existing buildings and redesign of public spaces. Much of the prostitution and other remnants of the former harbor area are now gone.

The design of the museum, by Neutelings Riedijk, is marked by a public walkway that spirals its way up from the street to the roof level, giving the building its zigurat shape. This feature integrates public space with the building volume and brings visitors and neighbors in easy contact with the exhibitions. The walkway consists of spacious squares and escalators behind a curved glass curtain wall, through which different panoramas of Antwerp appear.

South view over central Antwerp

North view over harbor area and new residential developments

West view over the river Schelde and the Linkeroever (left bank)

 

 

Liège Guillemins

Between 2005 and 2009 a new high speed rail station landed in Liège (Belgium), a monumental design by Santiago Calatrava. The Guillemins station solved several infrastructural problems and provided the region of Liège and the Dutch region of Zuid-Limburg with access to the TGV-network. Surprisingly, the station also has direct access from the adjacent motorway. The huge terminal is an architectonic eye-catcher, attracting tourists and couples shooting wedding photographs. From the platforms, a wide panorama of the city can be observed, made possible by the longitudinal roof construction. The integration of the station with its surroundings however remains problematic.

Unlike the station of Leuven, Liège-Guillemins is situated as an island in an urban void and space of flows, with no urban development adjacent to it. The master plan, drawn up by Calatrava and Eurogare, foresees broad boulevards connecting the station with the waterfront of the Meuse river. In practice, not much of this connection has been realized yet. In fact, it is almost impossible to get directly from the station to the river, since an urban expressway blocks ones way, with very few options for pedestrian crossing.

As also observed by the Architectural Record, the large space in front of the station remains a desolate parking lot for the time being. Because of its scale and shape, the station also does not connect in any way to the existing neighborhood. The direct surroundings, including some rundown urban blocks with vacant lots and prostitution, will in time probably make way for realization of the master plan.

Surroundings of Liége-Guillemins

Meuse waterfront

7th European landscape biennial

Semptember 27-29th, the 7th European Landscape Biennial will take place in Barcelona. The theme of this year’s event is ‘Biennal versus Biennal’, focused on discovering new ways of action, while exploring inhospitable areas and guiding discussion towards rethinking old certainties.

The Biennial has been consolidated on a European scale in its six previous editions:
“Remaking Landscapes” (1999)
“Gardens in Arms” (2001)
“Only with Nature” (2003)
“Landscape: a Product / a Production” (2006)
“Storm & Stress” (2008) and
“Liquid Landscape” (2010).

Furthermore, the Biennial approaches the international scale in lasts edition through our invited countries (as we have focused on the contemporary landscapes of USA and China) and this edition as a wider overview.

Download the program