‘A NEED FOR SYMBIOSIS BETWEEN OLYMPISM AND THE HOST CITY’S SOCIAL REALITY’
Stephany Tzanoudaki MASTERS OF PHILOSOPHY
Edinburgh College of Art-Heriot Watt University School of Design and Applied Arts Department of Interior Design submission: January 2001
‘This copy of the thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that the copyright rests with its author and that no quotation from the thesis and no information derived from it may be published without the prior written consent of the author or the University (as may be appropriate).’
1 TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION Objectives and Methodology Introduction of Chapters
Chapter I THE PROJECTION OF OLYMPISM INTO THE 20 th CENTURY SOCIAL REALITY - THE CONCEPTION OF ‘MODERN OLYMPIA’
Introduction
Definition of Olympism Coubertin’s Vision of Olympism - A Link with the Past ‘Body and Mind’ Olympism - A Link with 20 th Century Olympism - A Philosophy of Synthesis Olympism - A Philosophy of Eclecticism Conclusion
The Conception of ‘Modern Olympia’ The Historic Roots of ‘Modern Olympia’ From the Ruins of Ancient Olympia to the Vision of ‘Modern Olympia’ The Synthesis of ‘Modern Olympia’ The Setting and General Function of ‘Modern Olympia’ -The Site of Modern Olympia -The Scale and Fitting of Modern Olympia
The Contribution of the Arts in the Modern Olympic Games The Beautification of the Games Ruskinism as a Solution for Olympic Art
Chapter II THE EVOLUTION OF THE OLYMPIC EVENT AND THE ‘TRANSPLANTATION OF THE OLYMPIC CITY’
Introduction
The Evolution of the Olympic Event - The Birth of the Olympic City A Game of ‘Sameness’ and ‘Differentiation’ -Means of Sameness and Differentiation -The Meaning of Sameness in the Olympic Evolution -Elements of Sameness Olympism an ‘Unfinished Symphony’ Stages in the Olympic Evolution -The First Stage of Evolution -The Second Phase of Evolution The Evolution of the Olympic City
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The Transplantation of the Olympic City The Olympic City The Olympic City as an International and Global Environment The Commercial Environment The Local Environment Technology and Local Differentiation The Olympic Environment
The Olympic City of Berlin 1936 The Political and Social Meaning of the Berlin 1936 Games The Olympic City of Berlin The Olympic Site Monumental Architecture The Decoration of the City Leni Riefenstahl’s ‘Olympia’
The Olympic City of Mexico 1968 The Meaning of the ‘Mexico 1968 Olympics’ The Planning of the Mexico Olympic City The Olympic City’s Visual Identity
The Olympic City of Munich 1972 The Creation of a ‘New’ Image The Olympic Site The Design Plan The Creation of a ‘Miniaturised Cosmopolis’ and ‘Olympics in Green’
The Olympic City of Los Angeles The City of Los Angeles The Staging of the Games The Olympic Look
Chapter III A NEED FOR SYMBIOSIS BETWEEN OLYMPIC VISION AND REALITY - THE RE-CREATION OF THE OLYMPIC CITY
The Meaning of Symbiosis and the role of the Modern Olympic City Symbiosis and Eclecticism
Olympic Cities and ‘Utopias’ The Ambivalent Relation between an Olympic City and a Utopia Olympic Cities as Ideal Cities Cosmopolis A Forced Utopia Technological Utopias The Olympic City and the Imaginary City The Evaluation of the ‘Utopian’ Olympic City
3 The Olympic City of Barcelona 1992 The Re-Birth of the City The Projects The Parc de Mar The Image of the Olympic City The Meaning of Doxiadi’s ‘Entopia The relationship between Doxiadi’s Entopia and the Olympic City of Barcelona
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Towards the Future Olympic City The Olympic City and the Criterion of ‘Symbiosis’ The Olympic City of ‘Athens’
List of References
Bibliography
4 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIVE MATERIAL i 1.1, 1.5 Plan of Olympia, Olympism Selected Wrirings, p253 i 1.2 General View of the Sanctuary, Olympia, Olympic Publications i 1.3 Model of the Sanctuary, Olympia, Olympic Publications i 1.4 Olympia, Personal Photographic Collection i 2.1 Olympishe Spiele Berling 1936, Verlag Berlin SW68 i 2.2 Germany The Olympic Year 1936, Volkt Reich Verlag, Berlin W9 i 2.3 Speer’s Berlin, Cities of Tommorrow, Blackwell Publishers i 2.4 Warner March, Baw werk Reichsportfield, Deutscher Kunstverlag i 2.5 Reich SportField, Berlin 1936 Official Report i 2.6 Warner March, Baw werk Reichsportfield, Deutscher Kunstverlag i 2.7 Warner March, Baw werk Reichsportfield, Deutscher Kunstverlag i 2.8 Dietrich Eckart, Berlin 1936 Official Report i 2.9 IOC Archives -‘Adolf Kiefer in front of the Olympic Bell’ i 2.10 IOC Archives - ‘View of the Cathedral’, Berlin 1936 i 2.11,2.12 Berlin 1936 Official Report i 2.13 Olympishe Spiele Berling 1936, Verlag Berlin SW68 i 2.14 IOC Archives, Torch Relay i 2.15 Olympishe Spiele Berling 1936, Verlag Berlin SW68 i 2.16 IOC Archives, Torch Relay i 2.17, 2.18, 2.19, 2.20, 2.21, 2.22 Mexico 1968, Official Report i 2.23 Post card, Olympic Museum IOC i 2.24 Design (237) Magazine, p31 i 2.25, 2.26, 2.27, 2.28 Mexico 1968, Official Report i 2.30 Munich 1972, Official Report i 2.31 IOC Archives i 2.32 IOC Archives i 2.33 Munich 1972, Official Report i 2.34 Munich 1972, Official Report i 2.35 Munich 1972, Official Report i 2.36 Konzept visuelles, Erscheinungsbild, Munchen 1972 i 2.37, i 2.39 Konzept visuelles, Erscheinungsbild, Munchen 1972 i 2.38 Munich 1972, Official Report i 2.40 Los Angeles 1984, Official report, Olympic Look i 2.41 Wilshire Boulevard, IOC Archives i 2.42-i 2.47 Los Angeles 1984, Official report, Olympic Look i 2.48 Swim Stadium, Los Angeles, IOC Archives i 3.1 Barcelona 92, Official report, The means vol II i 3.2, 3.3 Ten Years of Urban Planning, Editions du Moniteur i 3.4, 3.5 Barcelona 92, Official report, The means vol II i 3.6 The sites, Villa Olimpica i 3.7 Olympic Review Sept 1991, The master builders of Barcelona i 3.8 Barcelona ’92, The Olympic Village - Architecture, Parks, Leisure Port, Editorial Gustavo Gill i 3.9 Beach of Poblenou, IOC Archives i 3.10 Barcelona 92, Official report, The means vol II i 3.11, 3.12, 3.13 Ten Years of Urban Planning, Editions du Moniteur
5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The last three years, working and researching to complete my Masters in
Philosophy, have been hard but very enjoyable, at the same time. I have had great support throughout, both from College, the Olympic Studies Centre and from friends and family. I would like to take the opportunity to give a special thank you to Alistair Milligan, Head of Interior Design, who supervised my work and to Les Mitchell and Michael S.Green for their stimulating discussions on my subject during these years. I would also like to give a big thank you to
Malcolm Jones for his interest in my subject and his support. Also, to Jamie
Anderson and Joan Wallace for their encouragement. I would like to stress my appreciation to the Olympic Studies Centre and the Olympic Research Council for the offer of the ‘Postgraduate Research Award’, which gave me the opportunity to find invaluable information on my subject. Finally I would like to thank the Edinburgh College of Art, the ‘Athens 2004 Committee’ and the
Alexander S.Onassis Foundation for thei help and concern. Also, to Pat Bryden who during the last months has been offering me a great help with the editing of my work.
6
ABSTRACT
In this study, ‘Symbiosis’ is seen as the ultimate solution reconcilng the philosophy of Olympism and the notion of the Modern Olympic City.
Olympism stems from the Ancient Olympic Ideal. It is the underlying theory of
Coubertin’s vision, reviving and modernising the ideals of the Olympic past, aiming at the improvement of society through the proportionate cultivation of man’s mental and physical abilities.
Coubertin believed that: ‘You have often to transplant a tree to keep it youthful’.
He challenged the future host cities to transplant the tree of Olympism into their social realities and to become main protagonists in the interpretation of his vision.
The study looks at the evolution of the Olympic Reality turning the Olympic
Games in one of today’s largest intercultural and cross-cultural events. It examines the notion of the Olympic City and how it is prone to political and commercial exploitation, represented by ‘sterile Utopias’, either uninterested in emulating the Olympic Ideal or to address the problems of their own social realities.
This study aims at proving the importance of the ‘Symbiosis’ between
Olympism and Social reality within the city. Also, to create a vision for the
7 future Olympic City in an attempt to bring it closer to Coubertin’s vision of revival.
8 INTRODUCTION
The Olympic Games were first revived in 1896, by the French humanist Baron Pierre de
Coubertin, the founder of the Modern Olympic Movement and the originator of the philosophy of Modern Olympism.
Modern Olympism is a philosophy of life with a purely pedagogical dimension which aims at the harmonious development and evolution of the human being. It recognises and rewards individual effort and therefore rejects all distinctions between different nations, political systems and social classes. Modern Olympism is inspired by the social and moral meaning of the Games in antiquity. Coubertin concentrated all his efforts on bringing back to life an institution that had fallen into oblivion since 394AD and giving a new form to its ideals. His vision, stemming from the ancient Olympic Ideal, aimed at the creation of a moden reality where ‘the demands of the present time would coincide with the customs of old’.(ref0.1)
Coubertin, in the effort to project the principles of a past ideal onto the needs of the present, has been characterised by many contemporary theorists as an eclectic because of creating a ‘synthesis’ of theories and forms which normally do not fit together.
Similarly, Modern Olympism is characterised as a theory that lacks realisation and specification and which requires some grounding in social reality in order to have a practical value.
The idea of ‘Modern Olympia’, together with the concept of ‘Beautification of the
Games’, possibly bring us closer to Coubertin’s formal and spatial interpretation of his
9 vision and to the meaning of Olympism’s aesthetic values. Modern Olympia gives the impression more of an ‘image’, than of a ‘concept’, where Ancient Olympia’s moral and social values are asked to take a new shape and form and to link with the new tensions of early 20 th Century internationalism and cosmopolitanism. Coubertin aimed at the internationalisation of Olympism in order to cultivate friendship, noble competition on equal terms and mutual recognition and understanding between different people and communities.
What Coubertin means by ‘the Beautification of the Games’ concerns the role of the
Arts and aims at creating external forms that ‘ennoble’ the ‘inner’ qualities of the
Olympic ideal, referring to what he had characterised as Olympism’s ‘moral and powerful buttress’.(ref0.2) Coubertin’s thoughts on the ‘Beautification of the Games’ are witness to his utopian aims, since the creation of a ‘beautiful Olympia’ would increase the value of its meaning. In his effort to promote Olympism and give a particular ‘language’ to his vision, he sees the role of the ‘Arts’ as the link between the
Olympic past and the Olympic present.
The Olympic symbols have come to signify Olympism’s permanent and universal values. However, Coubertin also wished to give to the Games a cross-cultural role, by giving the opportunity to different countries to host the event claiming that ‘you have often to transplant the tree to keep it youthful’.(ref0.3)
Today, more than a century after Coubertin projected his vision on Olympism, we have come across different visual interpretations of the Olympic ideal and different planning proposals for ‘Modern Olympia’, as a result of Coubertin’s intention to give a cross
10 cultural and popular role to the Olympic ideal. After the second half of the 20 th century, the articulation of the Olympic Ideal in the plurality of today’s world reality, driven by the forces of new technology in transportation and communications, led to the radical evolution and expansion of the Games. The Olympic Games grew into a ‘great world event’, with a strong intercultural and cross-cultural character, attracting large live and global audiences.
The evolution of the Games affected the size and the form of ‘Modern Olympia’ which turned from a static image to a dynamic organism, growing continuously and taking on the role and the dimensions of a city - the Olympic City. The latest decades turned the
Olympic city into the main protagonist in the evolution of the Games. As a result the
Olympic Ideal became involved in the changing of the city’s image and the Olympic city influenced the evolution of the Olympic Ideal.
Despite the fact that the Olympic city offered a permanent territory to foster the evolution of the Olympic ideal, we often find that the gulf between the ideals comprising Olympic theory and its practical application has grown even wider. We find the Olympic city often becoming identified with urban utopias, represented by
‘imaginary communities’ which are more artificial and consumption-based, and influenced by an emporium of styles and images. At other times, various utopian proposals have turned the Olympic City into an arena of political and commercial exploitation where the Olympic Ideal becomes associated with single-minded schemes and subjective goals.
11 Today we often find that the integrity of the Olympic idea is threatened by different ideals and benefits. There is also a confusion today in the identity of the Olympic City, resulting from the effort to project the Olympic ideal, by giving pre-scheduled utopian proposals which cannot be reconciled with the host city’s reality. The problem is concentrated in the role of the Olympic city which has a double responsibility and is moving in two different directions: On the one hand, it is placed in the centre of a macrocosmos, where it has to express visually the universal meaning of the Olympic ideal, and on the other hand it is placed in the periphery of a microcosmos, where it has to negotiate with the host city’s existing urban and social reality.
Objectives and Methodology
The aim of this project is to examine the notion of the Olympic City as a cross-cultural interpretation of the Olympic idea, by measuring the degree of its possible realisation and reconciliation with the host city’s surrounding urban and social reality. The project aims to emphasise the very special role that the Olympic city plays in the interpretation of the Olympic ideal and the evolution of the Olympic Movement. It recognises the
Olympic city as a result of the ‘transplantation’ of the Olympic Ideal -placed in space-, but also of its ‘evolution’ - placed in time.
No Olympic city has seen the organisation of the Games as having a totally negative impact or being a complete failure. There are a few occasions, such as the Montreal
Olympics, criticised for conspicuous waste of money and resources, and the Berlin
Olympics, criticised for being exploited for political purposes, with strong allusions to
12 the negative side of the Games. However most of the times Olympic ‘failure’ or
‘success’ depends on subjective criteria.
The study looks at five individual examples of Olympic cities; the Berlin 1936, Mexico
1968, Munich 1972, Los Angeles 1984 and Barcelona 1992 Games, focusing on each one’s design influences, sources of inspiration and techniques of visual representation.
The research sets ‘Symbiosis’ as a criterion of examining how the ‘real’ - the city’s social and urban environment - becomes associated with the ‘ideal’ - the interpretation of the Olympic ideal -, by looking at ideas related to each Olympic city’s site planning, architecture, decorative and graphic elements and industrial design.
Finally the study focuses on the Barcelona ’92 Games, as the best example so far in the evolution of the Olympic city, which managed to work for the benefit of the city and its people through social improvements and urban reformation, offering to its citizens a more healthy and human environment and to the rest of the world an example where the dream is reconciled with reality and not with illusion.
Introduction of the Chapters
The thesis is divided into three main chapters:
-The Projection of Olympism into 20 th Century Social Reality - The Conception of
‘Modern Olympia’
-The Evolution and Transplantation of the Modern Olympic City
-Need for Symbiosis between Olympic Vision and Reality - The Re-Creation of the
Modern Olympic City
13 The first chapter focuses on the philosophical and pedagogical dimensions of
Coubertin’s vision of Olympism. It examines Olympism as a ‘synthesis between present and past’, referring to those eternal values which could transcend the barriers of time and space and be revived, by taking on a new form. The chapter also examines the meaning of Modern Olympia as an image and territorial translation of Coubertin’s vision and the ‘Beautification of the Games’ as a result of Coubertin’s intention to provide the Olympic Ideal with an external form which would ennoble its internal qualities.
The second chapter examines the evolution of the Olympic Ideal from a vision to a cross-cultural reality together with the birth, the world wide growth and expansion of the notion of the Olympic city. It refers to the Olympic city’s identity of ‘sameness’, composed of elements which set the scene for Olympism’s universal and permanent visual symbols and to its identity of ‘differentiation’ which gives a diversity to each city’s visual expression, recognising its particular ideas and means of visual representation. The chapter also focuses on four different Olympic cities, the design of which has provided four varying interpretations of the Olympic Ideal.
The third chapter highlights the concept of ‘Symbiosis’ as a solution suggesting the need for reconciliation between the Olympic Ideal and the host city’s social and urban identity. It focuses on different utopian concepts and forms of ideal city with which previous Olympic cities could become identified. It finally emphasises the role of the
Barcelona 1992 Olympic city, as an example of an Olympic ideal achieving practical value by its grounding in the city’s urban and social reality.
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CHAPTER I
THE PROJECTION OF OLYMPISM INTO 20 th CENTURY SOCIAL REALITY
- THE CONCEPTION OF ‘MODERN OLYMPIA’
Introduction
Baron Pierre de Coubertin is recognised as a remarkable educational reformer for his
deep philosophical and educational concern, focusing all his energies on making the
‘Olympic Ideal’ a reality. Coubertin became the founder of the neologism ‘Olympism’,
a philosophy which promotes a model of life inspired by the ancient Olympic Ideal,
blending sport with culture and education 1. In his effort to introduce his vision of
Olympism to modern life, he gave to the Games a spiritual meaning and a symbolic
1 According to the Olympic Chapter: Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualitites of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy found in effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles. (p8 Fundamental Principles)
15 character, integrating his deep philosophical and educational goals. Today, the Games
have taken the dimensions of a global phenomenon - something that could be
considered to be a result of Coubertin’s wish to popularise and expand the Games
internationally. Olympism itself has gained a central position in the development of the
Modern Olympic Movement 2. The term is recognised internationally and features
prominently in the writing of the Olympic Charter 3 and the evolution of the Modern
Olympic Games.
If we wanted to give a definition of Olympism, away from the reassuring language of a
dictionary, we would say that it is a philosophy that speaks about the meaning and the
purpose of life, found in the harmonious development of man’s physical and spiritual
abilities. It is a modern theory stemming from the principles of the ancient Olympic
Ideal and therefore it is an ideology that rewards individual and collective effort and
rejects all distinctions between people societies, races, social classes or political
systems. Furthermore, it is a philosophy with a deep pedagogical concern, containing a
lot of intellectual suppositions and emotional values. It encourages the creation of a
form of reality, evolving in a spirit of common understanding and equal effort, based on
the ideals of noble competition, friendship and mutual respect. Without becoming a
copy of history, Olympism is a ‘synthesis’ of old ideals and new visions. It uses the
2 According to the Olympic Charter: Under the supreme authority of the IOC, the Olympic Movement encompasses organisations, athletes and other persons who agree to be guided by the Olympic Charter. The activity of the Olympic Movement, symbolised by five interlaced rings, is universal and permanent. It covers the five continents. It reaches its peak with the bringing together of athletes of the world at the great sports festival, the Olympic Games. (P8,9 Fundamental Principles)
3 The Olympic Charter is the codification of the Fundamental Principles, Rules, and Bye-Laws adopted by the IOC. It governs the organisation and operation of the Olympic Movement and stipulates the conditions for the celebration of the Olympic Games ( Olympic Charter Fundamental Principles,p9)
16 Olympic Ideal as an example of social and moral excellence and our reality as a new ground where the ‘demands of present times coincide with the customs of old’. (ref1.1)
Investigating Coubertin’s vision to restore the Olympic Games, our objective is to come closer to an understanding of how Coubertin’s notion of Olympism is projected into the
20 th Century Social Reality as a form of theory that aims at improving the laws of humanity.
For many of the interpreters of Coubertin’s visions and ideals, ‘the universe of discourse’ of Coubertin has not yet been cleared up sufficiently. (ref1.2) Olympism appears more as a philosophy linked with what we subjectively want to associate it with. Coubertin has never been recognised as a social theorist for the main reason that his theory lacks a specific social framework or ground. According to John MacAloon,
Coubertin was ‘far more committed to drawing positive social knowledge into his humanistic vision…than to conducting systematic and careful research and theorising himself’. (ref1.3)
The purpose of this chapter is to understand Coubertin’s visions and plans, as an autonomous and coherent philosophical message to humanity. The first part aims at coming closer to Coubertin’s initial thoughts and own words, examining his intentions to create a philosophy which could be reconciled with the social and world reality, or a
‘positive’ theory meant to remain as a utopian state of mind. The next few paragraphs also identify Olympism as a ‘philosophy of synthesis’ between past and present, classifying Coubertin’s style of thought according to its similarity with that of other eclectic philosophers.
17
In the second part, by coming closer to Coubertin’s conception of ‘Modern Olympia’,
Olympism is questioned as a ‘territorial translation’ of Coubertin’s Olympic vision. In
this part Coubertin’s fundamental visions of Olympism take the form of a symbolic
image. Questions are raised about the value of Modern Olympia as a form of ‘Utopia’
leading to the creation of symbols and forms, which represent an ‘idyllic’ form of
reality, incongruous with the state of reality within which it occurs.
Definition of Olympism
The objective of the next few paragraphs is to discuss the prominent themes that clarify
Coubertin’s vision of Olympism. The first is the main source from which Coubertin
drew a lot of his inspiration, which is the history of the Games in Antiquity and the
Olympic Ideal.
Coubertin’s Vision of Olympism - A Link with the Past
It is evident that the history behind the Ancient Games became the inspiration and the
beginning of Coubertin’s interest in researching the Olympic past and procceeding with
his proposal to organise the Olympic Games. The permanent home of the Olympic
Games was the sanctuary of Ancient Olympia 4. The Games is estimated to have begun
in 776BC. After a duration of 1168 years, in 392AD, they came to an end, with the
4 Ancient Olympia is situated in the western Peloponnese, in Greece, and it was the site of the Ancient Olympic Games
18 decision of Theodosius II 5 to abolish them, characterising them as a pagan event. The
Ancient Olympic Games, had grown in size and scope together with the rise and
development of the Hellenic world, attracting athletes from different city-states around
the Mediterranean.
Olympism stands as the opening of a dialectic between history and reality in which
elements from the present and the past agree with or contradict each other. What makes
Coubertin not simply a recognised historian but an inspired pedagogue is that he sees
history as a guideline to his philosophical and pedagogical thoughts and also as a
guarantee of the modernisation of the Olympic Ideal. He believed that history stands as
‘the first of all sciences in terms of significance and educational effectiveness’.
Coubertin emphasised the importance of connecting Olympism with history in building
a future that ensures its success. He claimed: ‘Nothing is comprehensive or explicable
without history’, ‘Everything past affects the future, and no future can be built without
taking the past into account’. ‘I hope that history will hold a major place alongside
poetry in intellectual exhibitions held along with the Games. This is only natural, since
Olympism is part of history. To celebrate the Games is to lay claim to history’(ref1.4)
In Coubertin’s eyes Ancient Olympia appeared to be an ideal formula for civilisation,
which he recognised as a heritage of his own time. In his definition of Olympism there
is constant reference to the Ancient Olympic Ideal as a symbol of the four essential
virtues in human life: calmness, philosophy (defined as a speculative search for the
truth), health and beauty. Coubertin was a philhellenic, an admirer of the Ancient Greek
history and philosophy. According to the contemporary critic Nikolaos Nissiotis:
5 Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire
19 ‘Coubertin’s philosophical postulate was Greek philosophy’, ‘For Coubertin Greek philosophy is not a theory of life but life itself as the object of rational thought’ (ref1.5).
Coubertin believed in the combination of the four values of calmness, philosophy, health and beauty, which he recognised as the basis of the Greek philosophy, confronting the well being of the Ancient Greek society. In a lecture that he gave in
1929, he linked his views on Hellenism to his main visions for the restoration of the
Games. He believed in the meaning of Hellenism 6 as ‘a cult of humanity in its present life and in its state of equilibrium’(ref1.6), a definition which he found suited his modern Olympic thoughts. Compared to cults of other civilizations, which were based on the ‘notion of recompense and on happiness in the beyond’, he believed that
Hellenism is a ‘mentality of all people and all time’, because it is based on the belief that ‘It is present-day existence that constitutes happiness’.(ref1.7)
Furthermore, he believed in the Olympic Ideal as something with an eternal value, an ideal that can transcend time and space. ‘Coubertin was not toasting the Olympic
Games, but the Olympic Ideal…as a gleam of joyful hope’.(ref1.8) With the revival of the Games, he aimed at the creation of a humanity that would become inspired from the
Olympic values and will move forward to the re-creation of the Olympic Ideal. In 1894,
Coubertin said ‘The Greek heritage is so vast, that all those in the modern world who have conceived of physical exercise in one of its many aspects have legitimately been able to lay claim to Greece, which embraced them all’. (ref1.9) He closed his speech with the following wish: ‘I raise my glass to the Olympic idea, which has crossed the
20 mists of time like a ray from the all-powerful sun and is returning to shine on the
gateway to the 20th Century with the gleam of joyful hope’.(ref1.10)
‘Body and Mind’
Coubertin believed that there are three essential parts in the composition of man: the
body, the mind and finally the character, which he claimed is formed above all from the
body. In this last characterisation, it can be realised that the body represents not only
someone’s physical appearance, but anyone’s ‘possibility’ to cultivate his physical
abilities, something that first is an identification of himself and then of his nation or
race. This kind of attitude is an emphasis on ‘who someone is and what he can become’
rather than ‘what someone believes and where he belongs’. Coubertin believed that
‘The Games were established for the glorification of the individual champion, whose
exploits are needed to maintain general eagerness and ambition’. (ref1.11) Nissiotis
confirms that Coubertin’s appeal to modern philosophy comes with the development of
Olympism as a theory which believes in the blending of body, mind and spirit as a
whole for the creation of character. He associates Coubertin’s thoughts with the words
of other existential philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, who believed that
‘consciousness exists its body’ and Gabriel Marcel’s belief ‘I am my body’.(ref1.12)
For Coubertin ‘Mind’ and ‘Body’ are the two despots that form our existence, ‘fighting
for primacy in us, a conflict that tears us apart savagely’. He believed that different
civilisations, at different historical moments, were ideologically devoted to the one and
turned against the other, claiming that the flesh, the senses and the instincts have the
6 Hellenism involves the principles, the ideals and pursuits associated with classical Greek civilisation. Coubertin wrote about ‘ The Phillhellene’s Duty’ (Olympic Revue, April 1906) where he looks at
21 upper hand at times, the will and the conscience at other times. For Coubertin, the
Olympic Idea was a theory of life that managed to pursue balance between the two. The
Ancient Games were a celebration of the pursuit of balance between body and mind,
through sport, creating at the same time a formula for social greatness.
It is not certain whether Coubertin saw Olympism more as a philosophy that represents
a rich heritage, beneficial to the aims of humanity, or as a remedie trying to contradict
the problems of his social reality. What is certain is that at the start of his campaign he
was opposed to the results of the industrialised world which condemned 19th Century
man to an alienating and antihuman life. He believed that since the Middle Ages ‘the
qualities of the body have been rather discredited and dissociated from the qualities of
the mind’.(ref1.13) The speech that Coubertin gave in 1894 is one of the few early
examples in his theory of Olympism, in which he oppposes his thoughts to a certain
social order: the ‘Division of Labour’ and the industrialisation of Western society. In
1894 he added: ‘In recent times, bodily characteristics have been allowed to serve the
mind, but they are still treated as slaves. Every day they are made to feel their
dependence and inferiority’(ref1.14)
Olympism – A Link with 20 th Century Social Reality
Olympism, unlike other theories of the time, is neither a manifesto clearly opposed to
the social orders of reality, nor a revolutionary reaction to the ‘evils’ of society.
According to John MacAloon, ‘No important school, discipline, tradition, or
perspective in professional science, has ever recognised Coubertin as a significant
social theorist’. (ref1.15) There is no doubt that Olympism is developed from an
Hellenism as a source for his Modern Olympism.
22 optimisic point of view, often characterised as a ‘positive’ or ‘utopian’ doctrine. For
Coubertin, it seems that the association with History - and in particular Ancient Greek
History- and not with Social Theory, seems to be the best guarantee for promoting his goals. In his vision of promoting social peace and harmomy, he argued that ‘History is the best guarantee’. He justified his point of view, as being ‘anti-utopian’, claiming that
‘to ask people to love one another is merely a form of childishness. To ask them to respect each other is not utopian, but in order to respect each other they must first know each other. The only true basis for peace will come from taking into account the precise chronological and geographical outlines of World History as now it can be taught.’(ref1.16)
Coubertin’s link with world reality becomes more obvious when he relates his thoughts to the needs of education and humanity, rather than those of social science. An example is when Coubertin in one of his speeches on ‘Olympism and education’ characterised
Olympism as ‘a destroyer of dividing walls’.(ref1.17) He turned against ‘the existence of a deluxe education reserved for the wealthy classes, no shred of which should be handed out to the working classes’.(ref1.18) Later referring to his comment as non- revolutionary in spirit, he placed himself among those who consider revolutions violent and almost always fruitless, by giving the definition of ‘Olympism as a state of Mind’.
He finally added: ‘The only true revolutions are those movements that intend to put ready-made institutions into place suddenly, each detail of which has been worked out in advance. This has nothing at all to do with Olympic education. Olympism is not a system, it is a state of mind. The most widely divergent approaches can be accommodated in it, and no race or time can hold an exclusive monopoly on it.’(ref1.19)
23
Olympism is not a revolutionary manifesto that stems from the demands and the beliefs of a specific political or social group. Nor is it, though, an infertile doctrine related to the Olympic past and bearing no relevance to the present. Coubertin when he recalled the history of the Olympic Games he compared Olympism to a ‘religious sentiment’, serving as a moral link between past and present. When he referred to the new human society, he emphasisised the power of internationalism, democracy and science as distinguishing features of his days. He called Olympism a ‘global phenomenon’ and he claimed, ‘In restoring the institution in its ancient spirit, and in keeping with the feeling of my day, I wanted to give the Games the global form that meets the hopes and needs of our days’. (ref1.20) In another speech Coubertin reminded his audience that the
Games cannot become monopoly to any group of people, giving to his action global dimensions: ‘Is there any need to recall that the Games are not property of any country or of any particular race, and they cannot be monopolised by any group. They are global.’ (ref1.21)
Coubertin found the end of the 19 th Century an evolutionary time filled with illusionary projects. In his reference to a youth that lacked drive and passion, he found the need for educational reform to be urgent. In his reply to the trends of fashion in his time he found that; ‘Given to excesses and caprice, fashion destroys its own future. What lasting undertaking can be found on the basis of fashion?’(ref1.22)
Olympism – A Philosophy of Synthesis
According to Coubertin himself, Olympism is not a system but a philosophy of life. He often related Olympism to a ‘religion’, a ‘language of humanity’ or a ‘state of mind’
24 that could lead to the harmonious development and evolution of the human being. In
1918, when he was asked to define the meaning of Olympism, he answered as follows:
‘It is the religion of energy, the cultivation of intense will developed through the practice of manly sports, based on proper hygiene and public-spiritedness, surrounded with art and thought’. Something that has become widely realised also by many of his critics is the fact that Coubertin could perfectly describe his vision and thoughts on
Olympism as part philosophical and pedagogical doctrine. However, there is no single definition, which he could give to the word defining its entire meaning. According to
Bernd Wirkus: ‘Olympism is used so inaccurately that it is impossible to find a single definition, which encompasses all the aspects of the term’(ref 2.23). Thus, Wirkus considers Olympism to be a matter of subjective interpretation rather than an objectively agreed theory.
Olympism is the result of a created ‘synthesis’ mainly because it was used as a link between present and past ideals. This synthesis characterises Coubertin’s composition of thought, bringing ideals from the Olympics in antiquity close to present matters, by giving them a contemporary relevance without often considering any of the logical consequences. The examination of Olympism as a ‘philosophy of synthesis’ recognises
Coubertin’s tendency and style of thought: selecting elements which are not usually of the same nature (e.g. time or place), and embracing them as a whole, creating a complementary synthesis among them. Here, the transplantation of ideals from the past into the present, becomes the most obvious part of this ‘synthesis’. The past is being brought into a dialogue with the trends of the present.
25 The characterisation of Olympism as a ‘philosophy of synthesis’ becomes more obvious after taking under consideration Coubertin’s speech in 1935, on the subject ‘The
Philosophic Foundation of Modern Olympism’, characterised as ‘the most significant
Olympic testimony that he gave in his final years’.(ref1.24) In his speech, Coubertin made clear his intentions, establishing a link between the ancient Olympic Ideal and contemporary ideas that form the basis of Modern Olympism. Coubertin’s speech is a list of the fundamental characteristics which link Modern and Ancient Olympism. He also highlighted those values which have managed to take a special and eternal place in the evolution of Olympic history, succeeding in establishing a continuity between the
Olympic present and the Olympic past.
One of Coubertin’s considered values in his definition of Modern Olympism is that it is a ‘religion’.The historic concept of the ‘religio athletae’ and the notion of Olympia as a ‘sanctuary’ were two of the main components of Ancient and Modern Olympism.
They became the main protagonists in the creation of a link between antiquity and contemporality, and a synthesis between the projection of Coubertin’s historical aspirations and philosophical thoughts.
The Games in Antiquity were a ritual festival, with a deep religious meaning honouring the Gods of Olympus. The athletes and among them the victors, were considered as men whom the Gods had favoured with the spell of invincibility. The glorification of the Games as great religious festival, came with the establishment of athleticism as a peaceful activity and a noble competition between people and societies. It developed into an institution that glorifies the champion and gives honour to the city-state where he originated from. Pindar, the Greek lyric poet of Antiquity, in his work ‘Epinikia’,
26 gave a definition of the athlete. He believed that the ‘athlete’ can become an example, representing one of the highest virtues in life, -Aidus. Aidus is a virtue in life which combines modesty and honesty with nobleness and respect, Above all it brings to the athlete and winner ‘moral gain’ in combination with ‘joy found in effort’.
For Coubertin the country, the nationality, the race represent contemporary man’s
‘religion’ which, through the Olympic spirit of equal effort and mutual understanding, he is given the chance to promote and honour. In his speech in 1935, Coubertin claimed: ‘The primary, fundamental characteristic of Ancient Olympism, and of
Modern Olympism as well, is that it is a religion. By chiselling his body through exercise, the ancient athlete ‘honoured the Gods’. In doing likewise, the modern athlete honours his country, his race and his flag. Therefore I believe that I was right to restore, from the very beginning of modern Olympism a religious sentiment transformed and expanded by the internationalism and democracy that are distinguishing features of our days’.(ref1.25)
Olympism - A Philosophy of Eclecticism
Olympism stands more as a suggestion of a life theory applied to a general and hypothetical plan of reality and not to an actual one. This is mainly the reason why it has often been characterised as a philosophy of eclecticism and Coubertin as an eclectic philosopher by many of the critics of the Olympic theory. Before moving, though, to the examination of Coubertin as an eclectic, we should open a parenthesis and talk about the meaning of eclecticism as a style of thought.
27 Eclecticism was a philosophical theory which arose during the 19 th Century but also a system applied in Art and Architecture. As a philosophical term it means ‘selection’ and
‘combination’ of elements from different theories or systems, which cannot normally fit together, or reconcile. It became a characteristic of 19 th Century Art in Europe, as a method based on combination of different past rhythms. In Architecture it has been signified as a system applied in industrial countries during the second half of the 19 th
Century. It is often associated with the revival of past rhythms in architecture combined with the use of new materials and structural techniques, though, without being identified with the 19 th Century ‘neoclassicism’ or with ‘industrial’ art and architecture.
What makes eclecticism differ from historicism has to do with its main sources of inspiration and aims. Eclecticism turns back to rhythms and aesthetic orders that glorify the past and reached an ideal perception of beauty, though ignoring the social factors that led to the expression of beauty. It uses past elements in order to create an external form or impression, whereas it also combines new techniques and materials to keep in line with the fashion of time. Therefore a characteristic of the architecture influenced by eclecticism is the use of many decorative motifs and historic patterns, trying to cover the ‘truth found in material and structure’, which is the main characteristic of industrial architecture.
For many, Olympism appears more as a subjective matter of comprehension and less as an objective fact which can be given a single definition. It is often depicted as a multipurpose functionalism, open to reconciliation with different theories and visions.
Olympism is often criticised as a theory that ‘lacks realisation and specification’ and regarded as an ‘empty and senseless catchword’.(ref1.26) The complex identity which
28 Olympism presents makes the discovery of Coubertin’s initial thoughts a difficult task.
It raises questions concerning the perception of an Ideal that belonged to a different socio-political world being translated into our social reality, without being able to distinguish any particular geographical or chronological dimensions. The main question is whether Olympism is a philosophy and an example of life which can be translated into reality or whether it is too utopian to serve reality. A second question is whether
Olympism as a theory that follows eclecticism allows flexibility of action and makes us consider the Games as a type of ‘camouflage’ of the systems of reality or as a mechanism for the function of unreality.
Bernd Wirkus in his writing about Coubertin’s Philosophical Eclecticism propagates
Olympism as a ‘Religion’ which aims at the creation of a continuity between past and present. Bernd Wirkus examines Coubertin’s notion of Olympism as a theory of eclecticism and as a synthesis of often contradicting ideas. He finds two ways of sketching reality that would either contradict or reconcile with Olympism: ‘Either we are trying to overlook difficulties, so we sketch a rather idyllic picture of reality and get peace for a while. This is the way of unconsciousness. But its slumber will be urgently interrupted one day, when the interior tension in reality will become greater than the cramp of illusion can stand. Or we are trying to permanently learn from our experiences, when we understand that knowledge does not simply lie in man’s mind as a reflection of fact, but that it becomes an implement to change reality when new situations challenge the power of man.’ (ref1.26) He sees Coubertin as a visionary who staggers between two types of thought, the historical and the utopian, which mingle and often overlap with each other. Despite the fact that often Olympism leaves the
29 impression of an infertile doctrine, a frailty, Bernd Wirkus recognises Coubertin as a
‘pragmatic historicist’ who succeeded in promoting his actions.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that visionaries are apt to speak in a language often difficult to interpret. What is found difficult is to interpret somebody’s visions, searching the sources and understanding the world that provided the essential material for their perceptions. In our case Olympism stems from Olympic history and it is influenced by the tensions of globalisation and modernisation.
Because Olympism is a selection of ideas and a synthesis of elements which create an optimistic vision for life and an idealised portrait of reality, it is also often characterised as utopian thinking. Coubertin’s conception of ‘Modern Olympia’ is possibly one of the main proofs of this kind of assumption, linked with ideas which do not represent an actual and particular situation. His vision for Modern Olympia, without being a copy of the Ancient Olympia’s prototype, draws inspiration from it. It appears more as a utopian formula, orientated towards ideals from the past and an artificial form of reality, which gives continuity to the ideals of the Olympic past and present.
The Conception of ‘Modern Olympia’
The aim of this chapter is to come closer to Coubertin’s vision of ‘Modern Olympia’ and the projection of Olympism into the 20th Century as an ‘aesthetic idea’. The subject of the next paragraphs will be ‘Modern Olympia’ as the basis for the evolution of the
Olympic City and as a product of Coubertin’s method of eclecticism.
This chapter will deal with the relationship between Ancient Olympia and Modern
30 Olympia, examining Coubertin’s vision stemming from the ideals of the past and how this reconciles with his vision on reality itself.
The Historic Roots of ‘Modern Olympia’
The site of Ancient Olympia was brought to life after a series of excavations that started in 1875 and continued until the 20th Century, providing us with a significant amount of information about the history, the architecture and the art of the games in antiquity. It is situated in a peaceful and idyllic valley between Kronos hill and the confluence of the rivers Alpheios and Kladeos.(i1.1, 1.2, 1.3)
Ancient Olympia was not a city, but a sanctuary in which Zeus was the focal point, honoured by people from all over Greece and the Mediterranean coast who gathered for the celebration of the games. The fact that Olympia survived for a period of 1,170 years, from 776BC to 394AD, is due to the religious meaning it had for its different conquerors, with the general belief that the place was sacred and belonged to the gods.
According to an old myth the start of the Ancient Games was forecast as a divine request, fulfilled by Iphitos. Iphitos, the King of Elis, had asked the Delphic oracle what he should do in order to save Greece from the decline caused by series of civil wars and plague, the reply to which was ‘the revival of the Olympic Games’. The myth presents clearly the ‘revival of the games’ as a remedie to the disasters characterising the Greek reality of the time and the celebration of Olympic Games as a celebration of the unification of the Greek world based on common religious belief. The result of this effort was the Sacred Truce, the peace bearing proclamation between all the city-states that were taking part in the Olympic Games. During the period of the broader Olympic
31 activity, there was peace and all wars between the participant city-states ceased for the purposes of the Games. The district of Olympia was declared sacrosanct and inviolable with a unique power to neutralise evil, to unite enemy camps and to pacify the Greek world.
Olympia became the permanent home of the Olympic Games in antiquity and it rapidly grew to become the biggest panhellenic and religious competitive centre, attracting the attention of more and more cities where the Greek world had spread. The rise of
Olympia as centre of democracy came with the establishment of athleticism as an activity that enhanced honourable and noble competition between people and societies.
The principle of the sanctuary of Olympia was to honour the winner and the city state where he originated, by preserving ‘crowning’, in order to ensure the moral superiority of the Olympics as contests of virtue. The crown of wild olive symbolises the Olympic ideal and the fact that the games took place for spiritual improvement, the harmonious development of body and mind, aiming at the creation of a generation endowed with virtue and strength.
From the Ruins of Ancient Olympia to the Vision of Modern Olympia
As we have already mentioned before, the sanctuary of Olympia has became
Coubertin’s main inspiration for the building of his vision of Modern Olympia, the realisation and evolution of which became later the notion of the Olympic City itself.
Ancient Olympia it is not only an historical source from which he draws his ideas but also a main protagonist in his effort to create a link between a present ideal and a past and make his dream for reviving and modernising the Olympic games, truth. If we examine Modern Olympia as a reflection of Olympism, seen as a philosophy of
32 synthesis, we will identify aspects of Coubertin’s perception of ancient Olympia as well as the main characteristics of the Olympic past, as he saw it, and of his vision of how
Olympia can be projected on the social environment of the world today.
Coubertin sees Ancient Olympia as a place with an intermittent value which he calls
‘the city of athletics’ and with a permanent value which he calls ‘the city of Art and
Prayer’. For Coubertin the sacred and the aesthetic nature of Olympia are consequences of its athletic nature. He saw in the language of patriotism the religious meaning of
Olympia and he wanted to project this concept into Modern Olympia. He declared: ‘In no case should any provision be made for a building devoted to performing religious rituals. We have used the term religious in another sense. Olympia did not deserve that adjective solely because it had temples, altars and priests. The city drew its holiness from the feeling of patriotic piety that imbued the place, that saturated its atmosphere and enveloped its monuments. Any Olympia worthy of the name and of its goals must give the same impression’.(ref1.27)
Coubertin often links his thoughts to the meaning of Olympia as a panhellenic centre, where Hellenism played the role of a common religion. As was also mentioned in the previous paragraph Coubertin believed in the holiness of Olympia. This way, due to its development as a symbol of patriotism – panhellenism - with the power to ‘cease the wars’, to ‘soften animosity’ to ‘honour the strong’ and to create an inviolable social environment. In one of his lectures on ‘Olympia’ and its deep connection to the social theories of ‘hellenism’, he calls ‘Olympism’ a philosophical and religious doctrine. In a speech that Coubertin gave on the subject of Modern Olympia, he claimed ‘Let us try to understand why it was in Greece that this religion took root, and whether the Greek
33 ideal in this respect is still suitable for the rest of humanity. Depending on our answer,
Olympia is either merely a splendid accident of history, or it is one of the most powerful sites of all human progress.’(ref1.28)
He sees Olympia as a religious centre based on paganism as an idea opposed to the one of asceticism. The concept of the harmonic co-existence of body mind and spirit in antiquity is opposed to the theories of the ascetics who believe that the body is the enemy of the spirit. The adoration of idols and the building of temples and monuments were ways of codifying their beliefs.
Finally Coubertin believed in the eternal value of Olympism and in the permanent meaning of Olympia as a ‘city of Art and Prayer’. ‘Olympia is alive after twelve centuries, but of course its life has not been without inequality or turbulence. We must admire the magnificent continuity of the celebration of the Games. Events of the most serious nature did not manage to interrupt them.’(ref1.29) However he found the idea of bringing Olympism back to life in a restored Olympia, impossible. He was searching for a new language that would give to the games a global form with the application of new codes that would meet the hopes and needs of today. For him today’s religion can be found in the search for patriotism: ‘To achieve these goals in our secular age, only one religion is open to us. The national flag, the symbol of modern patriotism being raised on the pole of victory to honour the winning athlete-that was what would keep the faith alive at the newly rekindled hearth’.(ref1.30)
The Synthesis of Modern Olympia
34 Once more we are going to discuss the eclectic nature of Coubertin’s thoughts, the product of which is the ‘synthesis’ of Modern Olympia as a vision stemming from the symbolic image of Ancient Olympia and as one influenced by the new socio-political conditions of world reality.
Coubertin was a visionary in the sense that he tried to put his historical and philosophical thoughts into a moral, social and political context of reality. The purpose of the following paragraphs is not to draw inspiration or examine the value of
Coubertin’s actual design proposals on Modern Olympia, for the simple reason that
Coubertin was not a systematic planner or designer. What seems important is to identify the dualistic nature of his proposals, the historical and the social.
We cannot relate Coubertin’s visions and plans on building a Modern Olympia to those of other contemporary planners. Coubertin’s proposal for Modern Olympia is a territorial translation of his ideas of Olympism, inspired by history but also influenced by the tensions of early 20 th Century internationalism and cosmopolitanism. Planners and designers usually suggest ideas that actually relate to the socio-political system of a particular reality (region, city). These ideas either are utopias that contradict the reality in order to make a certain statement, or become remedies trying to inspire hope and achieve a gradual improvement.
Coubertin developed his ideas into two main fields related to his vision of Modern
Olympia,
35 -The setting and the general function of Modern Olympia with the main activities that should take part, the number of participants, the visitors and the size and the division of space.
-The Contribution of the Arts, referring to the role of Architecture, Sculpture,
Decorative arts and the establishment of a style that would ennoble the theory of
Olympism.
The Setting and the General Function of Modern Olympia
a.The site of Modern Olympia
Coubertin was an admirer of Olympia’s natural environment and landscape. For him the combination of the landscape with the architecture of the sanctuary played an important role in creating Olympia’s sacred identity.
In a speech that he gave in 1906 on Ancient Olympia, emphasising on the factors that contributed to the unique beauty of the place, he came with the following conclusion:
‘The beauty of the surrounding countryside, the wealth of art objects, the astonishing jumble of buildings, the high standing of the institution, the nobility and the harmony of the pageants, the intensity of patriotic rivalries-all worked together to make Olympia one of the most moving and grandiose centers of ancient civilization’.(ref1.31)
Later in a description of his vision of Modern Olympia, Coubertin talked about the interrelation between man-made structures and landscape in the creation of ‘beauty’, and the essential collaboration of man and nature in the production of
36 ‘eurythmia’.(ref1.32) He believed that different landscapes could inspire a variety of different architectural proposals and compositions of line and colour. ‘The site selected will necessarily influence the architectural design. Lake Geneva or San Francisco Bay, the banks of the Thames or of the Danube, the Lombardy plain or the Pyszta vary greatly in line and colour.’(ref1.33) He had rejected the idea of an Olympia set in an enclosed area in the form of a station or a market by claiming that: ‘ Architecture must produce an effect with the aid of sculpture, painting and the other decorative arts. One can readily understand that a group of buildings in the form of any army camp, a train station or a grain market would not be up to the task of forming the ideal city’(ref1.34)
b.The Scale and the Fitting of Modern Olympia
An important factor that influences the scale and the fitting of Modern Olympia into a space is the territorial translation of the vision of Modern Olympia itself.
Coubertin preferred open and extensive grounds, something that he recognised as ‘a fortunate characteristic of the modern era’ in order for someone to be able to
‘understand the beauty and the possible uses’ of the space. He considered the layout of
Ancient Olympia too compact for the purposes of Modern Olympia and unsuitable for
‘eurythmia’. Contrary to the notion of ‘architectural agoraphobia’(when elements are placed too close inside a place), he believed that ‘architectural agoraphilia’ would also be a negative notion for the creation of Modern Olympia. He envisaged the Olympic
City as a place that could be visible as ‘a grandiose and dignified ensemble’, the shape of which ‘should be enough to indicate its purpose from a distance’. However, he believed that the site should not be spread out too much, but that it should fit into the
37 surrounding countryside.(ref1.35) He finally declared: ‘After that, let us not stand in the way of a potential masterpiece of design that might draw its inspiration from a completely different ideal, offering a sort of Olympic Mecca, enclosed behind its jealous walls, hiding its marvels behind a discreet screen’.
Another factor that Coubertin considered important for calculating the requisite size of the Olympic City is the dimensions of the event itself, which is mainly affected by the number of spectators and the number of contestants. In an article written in 1910, after the celebration of four Olympiads, Coubertin proposed an average number of 800 to
1,200 contestants and 10,000 spectators, against the number of 2,000 contestants and
80,000 spectators at the London 1908 Olympics. Coubertin, admitting that ‘the spectators in the first Olympiads conferred on the institution its global and international character’, predicted that ‘fashions will change, and the sentiment of non-athletes will grow indifferent’. He believed that ‘it would be futile to count on the faithfulness of the crowd’. He also thought that ‘it is difficult to provide everything that the crowd needs to control it (enclosures, ticket windows, barriers etc) and as a result we end up with a
‘hideous, hulking mass’ and ‘the shape and the colour of an ugly crowd’.(ref1.36)
However he was open to planning suggestions and technical systems with the application of which the problem could be avoided, as for example with the use of open spaces, lawns and terraces.
Coubertin’s characterisation of Olympism, as a religion and of Olympia as a religious and sacred place, has already been mentioned. In Coubertin’s mind. Ancient Olympia consisted of two distinct sections, the Altis (the sacred enclosure) and the secular city
(the city of the hotel keepers and merchants), an arrangement which he wanted to retain.
38 The division of the sanctuary of Olympia into two main areas is reflected by the character, the planning and the architecture of the area itself. First the Altis, which is a sacred grove, is separated from the rest of the site by a stone wall. The buildings outside the Altis were all secular, where all the installations were set. ‘It would be appropriate to draw inspiration from it, ensuring that the residencies of the athletes, the restaurants and all sort of auxiliary facilities are kept along the outskirts, far from the ‘Court of
Honour’, without any direct connection to what must be the heart and the centre of the city, i.e. the athletic, musical, theatre and library venues.’(ref1.37)
Ancient Olympia was not a City. It was a sanctuary. Modern Olympia is the description of Coubertin’s perception of a perfected image applied to the celebration of the
Olympic festival. His ideas on the contribution of the Arts came to emphasize his effort, in order to produce an idyllic picture of a temporary reality -a festival- similar to the one of the Ancient Olympia. ‘Beautification’ is the word which Coubertin uses, expressing the significance of the Arts into the creation of an environment with an increased in value overall impression and the production of a ‘beautiful event’.
The objective of the following paragraphs is to come close to the conception of
‘Modern Olympia’, not anymore as a setting or a plan, but as an image, involving
Coubertin’s thoughts on the contribution of architecture, the decorative and fine arts.
The purpose of it is to prove how the ‘Arts’ could contribute to increase the utopian nature of ‘Modern Olympia’, as a result of Coubertin’s harmonious eclecticism and intention to beautify the Games.
The Contribution of the Arts in the Modern Olympic Games
39 The 1906 Consultive Conference for Arts, Literature and Sports marked the beginning of a number of discourses involving the aesthetic character of the Modern Olympic festival.
Coubertin, with his theoretical model of ‘Modern Olympia’ had become closer to the description of an image rather than the development of a concept which would be based on a combination of contemporary and past styles. After the Paris Conference in 1906, many decisions were taken defining the role of the Arts and Literature and how these could ‘harmoniously’ join with sports, ensuring ‘the greatness of the Games’.(ref1.38)
The Conference was important not so much for the solutions that it gave, but because it marked the beginning of the consideration of the ‘Arts’, as something important for the composition of the Olympic identity. It also proved Coubertin’s concentration of efforts to discover the lost relation between ‘Art’ and the festival of sports, opening a dialogue between Olympism and contemporary aesthetic ideas. Coubertin provided a temporary solution, deciding on the incorporation of ‘Art Competitions’ as part of the Olympic programme. After the advisory conference held in 1906, Coubertin agreed on the establishment of thematic competitions during each Olympiad, as a solution aimed at
‘incorporating literature and the arts modestly and within reasonable limits in day to day athletic events at the local level’(ref1.39) The competitions were held from 1912 until
1948 in the following subjects: architecture, sculpture, painting, literature and music.
It appears interesting to focus on the role of ‘architecture’ and ‘decoration’, considering what has previously been mentioned about the influence of eclecticism on art and architecture.
40
For the Architecture of the restored Olympic Games the following statement has been made: ‘Two buildings must be considered. The gymnasium for exercises, and the stadium for competitions....From the artistic and practical perspective, the lines and the shape of the ancient stadium should not be used as a model. A truly modern stadium would be an open field surrounded by greenery, with elegant and spacious stands decorated with flowers.’(ref1.40)
As far as it concerned the decoration of the athletics facilities, what was considered suitable was ‘providing new and harmonious decorations’(ref1.41) It was claimed that:
‘the conference was quick to rule out red satin, red velvet, gold crepe, painted fabric escutcheons and in general the materials used routinely in most countries. The conference advocated the use of lightweight, light-colored fabrics and a return to the trellis-work decorations favored at the time of Louis XV’(ref1.42) It also favored the use of flowers as a ‘natural accompaniment for outdoor exercises’(ref1.43) and displays of equipment similar to the ones set up during military festivals, but by ‘using sports equipment rather than armor’.
In both descriptions the eclectic nature of Coubertin’s thoughts is clear, considering matters such as architecture and decoration. It seems that there has been created a distinction between the external form of elements and their internal meaning and value.
As we saw before, when Coubertin referred to the meaning of art in antiquity, he made clear his intention to revive not so much ‘the form’ but ‘the very principle’, despite the fact that he was an admirer of the classical epoch. It seemed that he was more interested in the internal meaning of the Olympic values, which he had characterised as a
41 ‘powerful buttress’, rather than the order, the lines and the shapes of Olympia’s artistic and architectural elements.
Coubertin was fascinated by the fact that Olympia was a gathering point of the society’s intellectuals, artists and writers, something that as he said had created ‘the inestimable prestige the Games had enjoyed for so long’. At the same time he sought solutions for the creation of external forms that would ennoble, popularise, expand and modernise the Games’ internal meaning. For example he wished to revive the idea of the ‘stadium’ as a place where athletes and spectators gathered to celebrate the Olympic Games, but not as a form. In Coubertin’s vision of Modern Olympia, but also in his thought of how the Arts could ennoble and expand it had taken, historic values seem to be resembled as the ‘soul’ of any artistic activity, dominating the general character and overall impression of the Games. On the other hand external forms and decorations are the
‘shell’, representing the temporary and universal nature of the Games.
The Beautification of the Games
Previously we saw how the vision of Modern Olympia, stemming from an idealised perception of Ancient Olympia, was a result of Coubertin’s eclectic view of reality, in an attempt to link the Olympic past and present aesthetically. He gave a significant role to the Arts, inspired by their role in Ancient Olympia, aiming ‘to restore the Olympiad to its primal beauty’. For Coubertin the word ‘beauty’ meant the qualities found in the moral and spiritual meaning of things. Although for him the role of the formal and material qualities was to renew, expand and ennoble the ideal-internal value of objects or spaces, he never clearly favoured ‘utopian thinking’ or the creation of ‘utopias’.
42 However what Coubertin implied by the term ‘Beautification’ of the games brought him very close to the utopian thinking. Coubertin envisaged the creation of an environment which with its aesthetic and artistic qualities would establish an imaginary and universal link between past and present, reinforcing the eternal value of the Olympic ideals. This imaginary link had to be represented by an environment ‘beautiful’ enough to reflect and expand its internal value.
The transplantation of an ideal from the past and the beautification of its meaning, brings us to the heart of a utopia, not because Coubertin defined it like this, but because this is the essence of the utopian thinking. ‘Utopias’ are placeless, ideal or imaginary societies, representing a positive view and a perfected and ideal form of reality. They often talk about ‘how people should live, about human nature, and the meaning and purpose of life’(ref1.45) Coubertin was a positivist and his vision often gave the impression of an applied ‘past ideology’, ‘theoretical formula’ or ‘frameless image’. A first example of this was ‘Modern Olympia’ itself. According to Douglas Brown,
‘Modern Olympia is a testament to the theoretical nature of the aesthetic idea of
Olympism’(reg1.46) Therefore it can take the dimensions more of an image and less of a real space.
What brings Coubertin’s visions close to the concept of ‘utopia’ could be explained first of all by the fact that Coubertin envisaged an ideal form of reality, synonymous to a global community where people live under the rule of the same religion, that of
Olympism. Secondly, it can be explained by the fact that he did not give any specific geographical dimensions to his vision and therefore Modern Olympia and any other element in Coubertin’s mind which made up an ideal host environment were placeless.
43 Coubertin called upon different nations to organise the Games, wishing to base
’Olympiads upon an absolute internationalism’. Therefore he offered the opportunity to representatives of different cultural, social and national background to give form to what he thought as the ‘beauty’ of the Games.
Ruskinism as a Solution for Olympic Art
During the first years of the Modern Olympic Movement and the staging of the Games in different cultural and social environments, it became evident that Olympism lacked a particular mode and aesthetic expression.
There is evidence that shows the influence on Coubertin of the English art critic and social reformer, John Ruskin(1819-1900). Coubertin acknowledged Ruskin as the personality that came closest to his perception of ‘beauty’. For him, Ruskin was an art scholar who managed to give to art a popular character aimed at adding elegance and
‘beauty’ to the everyday environments of the working classes. Ruskin was also a social reformer who gave to his artistic thoughts a moral and social dimension, envisaging a society which could socially improve through the ‘full comprehension and contemplation of the ‘Beautiful’, as a ‘higher activity’ and ‘as a gift of God’.(ref1.47)
The two men had never exchanged any views. This can be partly explained by the fact that Ruskin died in the year 1900, a time when the Modern Olympic Movement was only at the beginning. Even though there is no evidence showing Ruskin’s interest in either the Ancient or the Modern Olympic Games, it is worth mentioning that Ruskin borrowed the term ‘theoria’ (contemplation) from the Greek philosophers in order to
44 describe his idea of beauty. He called ‘Aesthesis’ ‘the mere animal consciousness of the pleasantness’ and ‘Theoria’ ‘the exulting, reverent and grateful perception’. (ref1.48)
The first time Coubertin referred to Ruskin’s theories on popular art education was in
1901. That was also the start of Coubertin’s link with Ruskin’s theories of art. The main evidence of Coubertin’s reference to Ruskin’s theories was in an article entitled:
‘Decoration, Pyrotechnie, Harmonies, Corteges, Essaie de de Ruskianisme sportif’ where Ruskin is described as ‘the great English apostle of popular art’.(ref1.49) We do not really know, how deeply and widely Coubertin had taken up Ruskin’s theories, despite the fact that he often used the term ‘se ruskinianiser’, emphasising that
‘beautification’ could lead to an increase of the value and qualities of things.
Many of the contemporary examiners of the influence of Ruskin upon Coubertin are biased on whether Coubertin understood the different facets of Ruskin, including the political and economic dimensions of his thought, or had only looked at Ruskin the art critic. Many theorists focus just on the influence of Ruskin the art critic, something that is explained by the fact that Coubertin was an ‘eclectic’ and he was often interested on a selection of someone’s theories in order to justify his opinion. Norbert Muller in his introduction to Coubertin’s ‘Selected Writings on Olympism - The Contribution of the
Arts’ refers to Ruskin as a person whose ‘aesthetic theory defined external beauty as the reflection of inner beauty’. (ref1.50)
Other critics emphasise that Coubertin was aware of the social and economic dimensions of Ruskin’s work and this is why he chose to identify with him. The contemporary critic, Arnd Kruger, believes that today’s Games have taken on the
45 dimensions of a ‘splendid postmodern phenomenon, because of Coubertin’s attempt to
Ruskinise them’.(ref1.51) In other words he believes that Coubertin was aware of and favored Ruskin’s economic theories, based on popular art and the commodification of the artistic activity, a result of which is today’s conversion of the Games into such a marketable commodity. Douglas Brown also believes that in matters of beauty
‘Coubertin borrowed, explicitly, many of the values represented from the theories of
John Ruskin’(ref1.52) He also supports the view that ‘Coubertin recognised the social implications of Ruskin’s philosophy of Beauty and Art, but was incapable of truly articulating the same aesthetic-social scheme into his own theories about modern sport.
(ref1.53)
Ruskin was one of the personalities that got involved, in theory and in practice, with many fields, from art to social and political ideas and even later on to an experimentation with spiritualism. He is often characterised as ‘one of the more controversial figures of his time’(ref1.54), and as a person with strongly formulated beliefs but unable to present a complete and ‘perfect theory’, The contemporary critic,
Douglas Brown, points out ‘Ruskin’s desire to act on his social and economic ideas as a demonstration of his incredible naiveté’, claiming that the same kind of naiveté fuelled much of Coubertin’s oeuvre.’ (ref1.55) With the material we have available, it is hard to certify whether Coubertin was aware of all these subjects and had been entirely faithful to all the fields of Ruskin’s thoughts. At the same time, being aware of the eclectic nature of Coubertin’s ideas, it could be easily assumed that his thoughts on art and beauty resembled those of Ruskin, and the whole idea of Coubertin’s Ruskianism be easily ignored. It can actually be suggested that because Ruskin’s theories on art
46 were ‘en vogue’ in France at the time, Coubertin considered Ruskinism an option for making the Games a fashionable and popular event.
The aim of the following paragraphs is not to examine whether Coubertin intentionally or not chose Ruskinism as a solution for Olympic Art. The purpose of mentioning
Ruskin is to help us come closer to what Coubertin perceived as Ruskinism in order to understand better what he meant by the ‘beautification of the Games’. It may also help us to see whether there are any elements that could support the idea that Coubertin wanted to give to the arts a symbolic meaning and to the Olympic host environment a utopian identity.
According to Arnd Kruger, Coubertin’s ‘Beautification of the Games’ brings us to the heart of Ruskinism. He finds that the ‘application of external decorations to everything’
(ref1.56) was a common characteristic of the late 19 th Century ‘Arts and Crafts’ movement and of Coubertin’s thinking.
Douglas Brown points out another characteristic, which he uses to show Coubertin’s deep understanding of Ruskin - the art critic. He finds a similarity between what we previously discussed as the ‘internal meaning’ or ‘soul’ of Olympic Art and what
Ruskin characterised as ‘Vital Beauty’ (contemplation of the beautiful).(ref1.57)
Coubertin gave a title to the beauty emanating from the internal meaning of things. He called this unique type of aesthetic beauty, ‘Eurythmie’. Brown describes ‘Eurythmie as something distinct from taste or beauty, as a quality of beauty found in a collection of elements or experiences, ‘without the necessity of focusing on the minute separate
47 details of each element’ (ref1.58) Similarly, Ruskin described as ‘Vital Beauty’, ‘The felicitous fulfillment of function in living things, more especially of the joyful and right exertion of perfect life in man’. (ref1.59) For Ruskin there is a distinction between the external qualities of bodies , which he called ‘Typical Beauty’ and the indication of the state of our moral health, by making a moral connection and reading the visual forms as symbols of the Divine, on what he called ‘Vital Beauty’. (ref1.60)
Both men recognised the meaning found in visual elements and forms as ‘expressions of higher things’.(ref1.61) Ruskin was both a materialist and an idealist. He detested the
‘picturesque’ as a false vision of nature or any artistic activity that was a creation of a
‘mimetic version of reality’.(ref1.62) Similarly Coubertin with the revival of the
Olympic games wanted to ‘restore this ideal completely, in a form and under conditions suited to the needs of the day’.(ref1.63)
Ruskin opposed himself to the picturesque mode of vision that bore no resemblance to the facts: he believed in the truth of impression as well as of form, declaring ‘Nothing but the Truth’ and referring to a system of three orders of truth: ‘the truth of fact, the truth of thought and the highest truth, the truth of symbol’(ref1.64)
He saw ‘Architecture as an expression of man’s inter-relationship with his natural surrounding’ . He distinguished good architecture, ‘which has life and truth and joy in it’ from ‘bad architecture’, ‘which has death, dishonesty and vexation of heart in it’ concluding that ‘the building must speak the truth’ and that ‘Architecture expresses social history’.(ref1.65) Coubertin at the same time, referring to the greatness of the
Games in the past when arts and literature joined harmoniously, claimed that, ‘This
48 must also hold true in the future’ adding that ‘The last thing on our minds, is to undertake some childish, sacrilegious restoration of the magnificence of the past’. For him ‘original beauty’ was something vital and long lasting, similar to the truth of fact found in Ruskin’s words. In an example that he gave of the architecture of the Athens stadium, he supported the idea that different environments were not suitable for the same form, such the one found in the lines and the shape of the ancient stadium. He claimed that, ‘As pleasing as it may be that the stadium in Athens could be brought back from ruins and rebuilt, it would nonetheless be regrettable to see newer cities try to build similar structures. Such modern structures would lack the historical glory and the special beauty of the unique landscape of Athens’.(ref1.66)
A characteristic that could possibly have influenced Coubertin’s utopian thinking is
Ruskin’s foundation of a utopian community, in an attempt to organise community based projects that would improve the living conditions of the working classes, through education. The Guild of St George, founded in 1871, was one of Ruskin’s utopian experiments and an attempt to create a fulfilling working situation. Ruskin despised the industrial world England had pioneered and condemned the evil consequences of the division of labor, claiming that: ‘It is not, truly speaking, the labor that is divided, but the man , broken into small fragments and crumbs of life...We manufacture everything except men.’(ref1.67) Ruskin also became associated with William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement. He resented mass-produced goods and joined a debate about what constituted ‘good design’ and ‘good taste’. A similar statement was made by
Coubertin at a speech he gave in 1906, claiming that people ‘have lost all sense of eurythmy’ and that ‘the masses were incapable of linking the pleasures of various sorts of art together’ and ‘they do not find the ugliness and vulgarity of their surroundings
49 offensive’. Referring to the art found in public festivals, Coubertin thought that there was ‘one guest always missing: good taste’.(ref1.68) He finally concluded referring to the role of art in the Olympic festival: ‘Our meeting place is the very definition of good place, and is acknowledged as such throughout the world’(ref1.69)
In the previous paragraphs we have discussed the main issues that link Coubertin’s thoughts on ‘beauty’ with those of Ruskin. Ruskin was a person that Coubertin seems to have eponymously identified with and whose solutions seems to suit Coubertin’s thinking on art. Even though it can be understood at a general level why Coubertin gave a particular emphasis to Ruskinism, it is still difficult to see the role of Olympic Art and the consideration of ‘what is beautiful’ as an objective matter. It seems that even here
Ruskin has given the answer, being the one that believed that ‘it is not an object that is beautiful, but what we subjectively associate it with’.(ref1.70)
50
CHAPTER II
THE EVOLUTION OF THE OLYMPIC EVENT AND
THE ‘TRANSPLANTATION’ OF THE OLYMPIC CITY
Introduction
In the first chapter we talked about the fundamental principles of Olympism as a theory, focusing on ‘Modern Olympia’, characterised as Coubertin’s territorial translation of his modern vision, aimed at giving to the Olympic festival a distinctive visual identity.
In this chapter, the evolution of the Olympic Games as a visual event and as a temporary form of reality that changes with time and place will be examined. The objective of this chapter is to come closer to the visual character of the Olympic event after the second half of the 20 th Century, when Coubertin’s ‘Olympic festival’ evolved into a large intercultural and cross-cultural event, attracting a large live and global audience. The chapter focuses on the example of the Olympic City as a characteristic of this second phase of the Olympic evolution, during which the Olympic event gave way to the design of an entire Olympic site, integrated into the geographical territory and the social and the cultural environment of the host City.
The second part of this chapter emphasises the transplantation of the Olympic City, as an element that creates an opportunity for cultural diversity and differentiation of the
Olympic identity and activity. The objective of this part is the examination of the
51 Olympic City as the subject of a creative effort, aiming at bringing into reconciliation the Olympic theory and reality. In this way it aims at highlighting the role of the
Olympic City as an ultimate solution that can reconcile Olympic theory with social reality. The essay focuses on four different examples, the Berlin 1936, the Mexico
1968, the Munich 1972 and the Los Angeles 1984 Olympic Games. It examines how each Olympic City gave its own visual interpretation to the Olympic event, by bringing it into close association with the City’s existing socio-political and cultural character and integrating into its own urban territory.
The next few paragraphs will examine the notion of the Olympic City as a central theme of discussion, in a theoretical and practical point of view:
-From a theoretical point of view, this will be by bringing the notion of the Olympic
City close to references that witness its origins and the different stages of its evolution.
Also by examining the Olympic City as a notion, according to how static or dialectic it is with the environment that emplaces it. In this way the Olympic City either gains an identity of ‘sameness’, which is more symbolic and ritual in character, immobile and fixed in time, or an identity of ‘differentiation’ which is time dialectic and capable of establishing a relationship between the real and the imaginary.
-From a practical point of view, it will be by referring to examples in which the
Olympic City played a significant role, with the creation of a visual environment which had the power to re-invent the form of the Olympic event and re-define the purposes of
Olympism.
52 The aim of this chapter is to emphasise the power of the Olympic City to create a dialectical relationship between Olympism and the host city’s Social Reality, giving the opportunity to the host community to associate its personal aspirations and ideals to the realm of the Olympic ideals. The Olympic City offers the possibility for such a creative action, linking the imaginary with the real and the ideal. Depending on the way in which the imaginary is linked with the real and the ideal, we can be led either to honest or illusionary solutions, which are beneficial or disastrous for the future of Olympism and for our societies.
The Evolution of the Olympic Event - The Birth of the Olympic City
The evolution of the Olympic reality interferes with elements that either gave different forms to the identity of Olympism or guaranteed the integrity of its meaning. First we are going to refer to those characteristics which have contributed to the creation of a common Olympic language, addressed to the principles of Olympism, and then to those which brought main changes in the history of the Olympic reality.
The Games during the later decades of the 20 th century underwent many changes, turning more into a spectacle and less into a rite. Communication and information technology introduced new ways and means of exchanging news and ideas, breaking the barriers of communication and the distances between people. The Rome Olympic
Games in 1960, were the first to broadcast the event live. Since then, the television coverage has moved hand in hand with marketing and has become the main agent leading to the popularisation and promotion of the Olympic event.
53 Today, the Olympic event is no longer exclusively associated with direct observation.
Television broadcasting has led to the gigantism and the secularisation of the Olympic event. The Games have become supported by the mass media industry, changing their scale and moving the radius of their action away from its centre.
A Game of Sameness and Differentiation
‘Sameness’ refers to the elements that constitute the integrity, permanence and homogeneity of the Olympic event. On the other hand, ‘Differentiation’ refers to ideas and plans that lead to change, transformation and evolution of the Olympic event.
The Olympic Games have always stood between rules that compose their identity as an homogenised Olympic event and those that make each Olympics distinguishable from the others.
a. Means of Sameness and Differentiation
The Olympic Games in antiquity owed their greatness to the creation of an environment of common belief and understanding that brought into reconciliation the diversity of cultures, people, competitors, social and political realities. The faith and belief in the same goals and ideals is what gave to the Olympic Games an identity of ‘sameness’.
Modesty, equal effort, clarity, honesty and mutual understanding were the rules and the goals of a shared activity and ideal. Social diversity and personal differentiation were framed by the rules and values of a common understanding. People, social realities, city-states were unified under a common religion, language and culture, but also under the celebration of a common event- the Olympic Games.
54 In the Modern Olympic world, the conditions are very different. The Modern Olympic
Games have taken the dimensions of a universal institution, bringing together people and countries from many different cultures and societies which all have different values, ideals and beliefs. Coubertin introduced Olympism not only as the formal language of the Modern Olympic Games, but as a language addressed to each individual separately, turning into a much more subjective matter. In this way Olympism can be either translated by people or nations as a language declaring ‘sameness’ which means a shared language of humanity, or as one declaring ‘differentiation’ which means a more distinguished and personal language.
b.The Meaning of ‘Sameness’ in the Olympic Evolution
‘Sameness’ in the Olympic reality exists theoretically. It expresses the attempt to ‘be together’, ‘gathering’ or ‘meeting’, sharing the same values and dreams and competing for the same goals, in a noble manner. It is usually based on elements or facts with a symbolic and permanent value. The first Olympic Games were based on a visual language of ‘sameness’ giving to the event an eternal symbolic meaning, converting it into an organised ritual activity. The Olympic flag, the Olympic oath, the Olympic anthem, the Olympic flame, the Olympic emblem, the Olympic torch relay, are all elements inspired by the representation of the Ancient Olympic Ideal, being a ‘liturgy’.
During the first Games a mixture of emblems, processions and decorative settings all contributed to the creation of an event based on a coherent symbolic message. The representation of Olympic ‘sameness’ comes to safeguard the principles and defend the values of Olympism, declaring continuity and eternity, though, without becoming associated with any personal values and views. It is addressed to humanity, without having a specific addressee as any other religion would.
55
We should not underestimate the value of Olympism being expressed as a language of
‘sameness’, even if this brings us close to an idealised image of humanity which often disagrees with reality itself. It is the expression of a belief in an ideal world based on peace, friendship, sincere understanding and mutual respect. The fact is that Olympic symbols or ritual activities have no often an immediate and direct value in establishing a peaceful world based on mutual respect. Even though in Ancient Olympia there were cases in which the Games were used as an opportunity to ‘sign peace’ agreements between enemy territories, the Modern Olympic Games did not often make serious contributions to solving political and social problems which troubled the age in which they appeared.
Many opinions have been expressed on whether the identity of ‘Olympic sameness’-
Olympic symbolism - has any contemporary value. Ideal conceptions always assume optimistic images and in the present case, that is to defend and maintain the historic values of the Olympic Ideal.
c. Elements of ‘Sameness’
Some of the elements that express the meaning of Olympic ‘sameness’ are either symbols/emblems which represent modern Olympic activity, or alternatively they are symbols or rituals inspired by the Olympic past. For example the Olympic torch is an example inherited from the Olympic past, re-invented and reformed to fit into the contemporary ritual system. On the other hand elements such as the Olympic symbol,
56 the Olympic flag, the Olympic motto 7 and anthem are invented in order to represent
contemporary values and ideals, offering an opportunity for a re-creation and
redefinition of the Olympic message.
For example the five interlaced rings is a new symbol, and also the official symbol of
the Olympic Games of the Modern Olympic Movement activity, which represents the
union of the five continents and the meeting of athletes all around the world. Coubertin
designed the Olympic symbol in 1913, with the following concept: ‘These five rings
represent the five parts of the world now won over to Olympism, and ready to accept its
fertile rivalries. Also, the six colours thus combined represent those of all nations, with
no exceptions. The blue and yellow of Sweden, the blue and white of Greece, the
French, Brirish, American, German, Belgian, Italian, Hungarian colours, the yellow and
red of Spain are beside the Brazilian and Australian innovations, and next to ancient
Japan and young China. This is a real international emblem.’
On the other hand symbols such as Olympic flame and the Olympic torch relay, first
employed at the Berlin 1936 Olympic Games, stemmed from the ancient Greek ritual of
‘lampadedromea’. ‘Lampadeodromea was a torch race between members of groups.
The team which stayed until the end with the torch still alight was the winner. Today,
the ancient custom has undergone several changes. Host cities and countries have given
their own interpretation, identifying the Olympic flame with the power and eternal
value of the Olympic Ideal which survived through the years.
Olympism an ‘Unfinished Symphony’
7 The Olympic Motto: ‘Citius, Artius, Fortius’(Olympic Charter p17)
57 Coubertin introduced Olympism as a theory with a pedagogical identity, wishing to achieve a reformation in education with the example of athletics. The year 1896 marked the start of the realisation of Coubertin’s ideas, something that in the early days of his campaign was considered an utopia by different countries, social and religious groups.
Coubertin declared that: ‘Towards the end of the 19th century all countries concentrated on the present, pursued practical and particular aims, goals that were both shrewd and reasonable. No one was aware of any need for ‘renovation’…That the day would come when such an utopia would become reality was however within realms of possibility’.
In his final writings in 1936, he characterised Olympism to an ‘Unfinished symphony’, referring to ‘a part of it that was complete and another that was still unfinished’.
(ref.1.71)
The characterisation ‘Unfinished Symphony’ reflects clearly the belief that Olympism is a ‘philosophy of synthesis’. In other words it determined that Olympism is an open opportunity that needed to take on real dimensions in order to be complete and also a theory that needed time to mature in order to be examined and appreciated as part of reality. It is a characterisation that makes clearer Coubertin’s point of view, placing
Olympism into a system that witnesses its evolution and its historical continuation.
The beginning of the Games in 1896 marked the history of an event that changed from being a vision to an open opportunity associated with reality. Coubertin’s ‘unfinished symphony’, despite all the contradictions coming from those who were unable to comprehend his ideal, proved that it could survive not only as a ‘utopia’ but also as a evolving form of reality. In the preface to the album of the 1 st Olympic Games in
58 Athens 1896, Coubertin reminded people of the purpose of his task, identifying it as a movement.
This statement provides theoretical evidence, of Coubertin’s intentions for the creation of an Olympic event that follows an historical sequence. This gives us reasons to believe that the Olympic Games as an international event and the Olympic City as a global notion, should be based on an identity of differentiation and not an identity of
‘sameness’. The Olympic City should be moving towards diversity and re-creation.
Stages in the Olympic Evolution
In the short history of the Modern Olympic Games we can distinguish two main stages that signify the evolution Olympic event and the role of the Modern Olympic City. The period between 1896-1960 represents the first stage of the Olympic evolution, during which the Olympic Games were celebrated as a form of a ritual festival, focusing more on creation of an image which would witness the event as a link between the Olympic present and its past. It is not a coincidence that most of the Olympic symbolism was invented during that period. With the exception of the Berlin 1936 games, during that period the notion of the ‘Olympic City’ was almost non existent and Olympic urbanism was not at all incorporated into any urban development programme or into the design or the architecture of the host city. The Olympic site was in a non dialectical relationship with the surrounding urban, cultural or social environment, since it was limited to the building of the stadium and a small number of temporary athletic facilities.
The first stage of the Olympic evolution took place during a time of a world economic, political and social instability. Two World Wars, dividing not only Europe but the
59 entire world into two halves, threatened to destroy the ideology of the IOC and of
Olympism. The Berlin 1916 Games were the first Games to be cancelled due to the start of the World War I. Later the designated Games for 1940 in Tokyo were cancelled due to the war between China-Japan. The displacement in the organisation of the Games from the city of Helsinki led to another cancellation, due to the war between Finland-
Russia and the start of the World War II.
The second stage of the Olympic evolution and development of the Olympic City started in 1960 and extended until the Games in Barcelona 1992. This is the period during which the Olympic City developed as a separate concept, being transplanted into different territories and integrated into different social and cultural environments. The
Olympic Games in Rome 1960 were the first example that created a more open dialectic between the Olympic festival and the host City itself. According to Manuel
Munoz, in the 1960 Games ‘For the first time ever , there was a regional conception of the urban mass, and behind the location and installation of Olympic facilities, there was a project for the territorial expansion of the city, of colonisation of the city’(ref1.72)
Since the Games in Rome, the primacy of the stadium as a key element gave way to a whole urban programme.
a.The First Stage of Evolution
The first Olympic Games had a relatively undefined visual character, since there were problems which required more urgent attention, such as the number of athletes and sports, the number of sports admitted for competition and the number of spectators.
Therefore during the first years, matters such as the contribution of the Arts, or the
60 setting of the Olympic City’s visual identity, either did not exist or had been developed only on a theoretical basis.
It should not be forgotten that the second Olympic Games in Paris in 1900 and the third in Saint Louis in 1904 were integrated into the planning and the programme of the
Universal Exhibitions, which were taking place at the same time. In both cases the
Olympic festival was overshadowed by the technological achievements shown at the
International Exhibitions. The impression gained from both of the Games was something so foreign to Coubertin’s primal vision of revival. He characterised the organisation of the Games in Paris as ‘a vulgar glorified fair, exactly the opposite of what we wanted the Olympic games to be’(ref1.73), in one of his later statements he added that: ‘The Universal Exposition wallowed in a veritable plethora of new forms and ideas ...In any case this has produced evidence to show that in future, care must be taken that the Games should never again be attached to one of those giant fairs which cause the philosophical values of the Games to evaporate, and render ineffective their educational significance’.(ref1.74)
The launching of the relationship between art and Olympism was a subject delayed until 1906, when Coubertin decided to summon an Advisory Conference on Art. The same happened with his conception of ‘Modern Olympia’, and his vision of creating an ideal plan for the setting of the Games, which was put forward to groups of architects after 1910.
The setting and the visual identity of the first Olympic Games seemed to have been based on experimental ideas which were not part of a particular conceptual context or plan. The realisation of Coubertin’s plans on ‘Modern Olympia’ and creation of the
61 Games’ Visual Identity were uncompleted tasks, based on Coubertin’s characterisation of Olympism as an ‘Unfinished Symphony’.
b.The Second Phase of Evolution
The latter decades of the 20th century brought major changes in the fields of communications, information and transportation in the public use and media. The increasingly rapid technological change very quickly affected the areas of communication and promotion of the Olympic event. The first example of this was the
Rome 1960 Olympic Games. New media, new techniques, staging ideas, changing images, forms and sounds all contributed to the formation of the enormous commercially aware, politically complex identity of today’s Olympic event. The advances in the ‘space-shrinking’ technologies, (transport and communications) led to the popularisation of the event which eventually went hand in hand with the forces of internationalisation, marketing and globalisation. The internationalisation and secularisation of the Olympic event provoked even greater media coverage, which in turn attracted the interest of the world’s financial sources. The city which always stood as a main factor in the ‘differentiation’ of the Olympic activity became the main protagonist in the evolution of the event.
The main characteristics of the second stage of evolution were: the internationalisation, the popularisation and the commercialisation of the Olympic event, with the additional role of the Olympic television, Olympic Marketing, Olympic financing sources,
Olympic city which comprises elements such as the Olympic architecture, the Olympic
‘look’, its image and Olympic signs.
62 The Montreal Olympics in 1976, became the turning point in the realisation of the vastness of the Olympic project vastness and the size of the financial responsibility that the staging of the Olympic event hold. The assumption that the games could be made to pay for themselves with an amount in excess of 3 billion pounds, at current value, turned to a debt that the city is still paying off. The construction delays that sank the
1976 Games in a sea of debt led to a decrease in the number of candidate cities during the elections that followed. In October 1974, only two cities, Los Angeles and Moscow, stood for the candidature of the host city 1980. In 1978 there was only one entry, and the agreement was signed for Los Angeles to host the 1984 Olympics. The Games in
1984 provided a different lesson, discovering new relations between financing possibilities and the projection of the Olympic image and identity. The Games in 1984 actually made a profit and introduced new marketing solutions, a new era of corporate sponsorship, based on companies signed as ‘official sponsors’ (35), ‘suppliers’(64) and
‘licenceees’(65). ‘Exploit the ephemeral and neutralise nationalistic fervour. Cut down totalitarian graphics and monumental buildings which consciously project sport as a political weapon’, was the message that the Los Angeles Olympics sent..
After the Los Angeles 1984 Olympics and the profit made by the Los Angeles
Organising Committee, the number of candidate cities increased again, bringing these into competition.
Gradually, with the turn of the second half of the century, the image of the urban city, the growing megalopolis, became more involved in the Olympic project. After the profit that the Games in Los Angeles made, many of the urban megalopoles mortgaged themselves, aiming at staging the Olympic event
63 The Evolution of the Olympic City
The creation and evolution of the Modern Olympic City took place during a century of such drastic changes. Technological progress and rapid economical and social changes were incorporated into the Olympic City’s evolving identity. In our days we are part of an Olympic reality that has not just accepted the forces of mass- production, mass broadcasting and global industry as part of its self-reproducing system. It has become an industry itself, with the creation of a powerful marketing programme composed of broadcast rights fees, sponsorships, supplierships, ticket revenues, licensing, coins and philaletic programmes.
The number of competitors, participants and spectators that are involved and taking part in the event, has increased dramatically. During the first Games in 1896, there was participation by 13 countries and 113 athletes for 32 events and 60,000 spectators.
During the Games in Atlanta in 1996 there were 271 events, watched by a live audience of 11 million and a global audience of 4 million, with the participation of 10,500 athletes from 200 different countries.
In our days the Olympic event has turned from a ritual event to a spectacle , from a gathering of a few thousands people to an international meeting point, an institution and industry at the same time.
The growth of the scale and size of the Olympic festival has increased the responsibilities of the City that organises the event. In today’s Olympics billions of pounds have been involved in the staging of the Olympics as a live event and its promotion as a global event. The country and the city are invited to respond to the
64 challenge to create an environment and an atmosphere that will favour the expectations of the time.
The Transplantation of the Olympic City
The Modern Olympic Games since they were established until now, have evolved into a cross-cultural and at the same time intercultural phenomenon. This means that the host
City has been involved within an ‘intercultural’ system in which the world’s cultures are offered the opportunity to promote their own cultural identity to the rest of the world. The Olympic festival itself is a creation of a cross-cultural system where different cultures, by preserving their identities and values, are gathered together under the banner of one common ‘religion’, that of Olympism, and a shared festival, that of the Olympic Games.
We should remind ourselves that in antiquity Olympia was the permanent home of the
Olympic festival. As we have already mentioned in the first chapter, Olympia was not a city: it was a sanctuary. Athletes and people from different city-states gathered in
Olympia to celebrate the Games, the most popular panhellenic festival, under one common belief and religion, to honour the Gods.
Despite the use of a permanent place for the celebration of the Ancient Games,
Coubertin entrusted different cities to host the Olympic event. In 1912, he declared:
‘You have to often transplant a tree if you wish to keep it youthful’. Coubertin believed that a place is suitable for the organisation of the Olympic festival when it is inspired both by internationalism and cultural diversification. The successive organisation of the
Games into different national, cultural and social territories around the world justify
65 Coubertin’s wish to distinguish the one Olympiad from the other and also his early tendency to create a model of an Olympic City, based on the idiosyncracy of the place that is hosting the Games. He finally added to his statement: ‘That which distinguishes our modern Olympiads, based upon an absolute internationalism, is the effort of the successive nationalisms called upon to organise them. It would be a very great pity if this effort appeared to tend toward something homogenous and identical’(reg1.75).
Coubertin was aware of what had led to the greatness, the harmony and the beauty of
Ancient Olympia, a model which he admired and had drawn inspiration from, for his conception of ‘Modern Olympia’. Ancient Olympia was the centre of a panhellenic expression found in the shared language of ‘religion’. For Coubertin, the flag, the culture, the race are contemporary man’s ‘religion’. For this reason the creation of an
Olympic environment based on cultural and national diversity is an open invitation encouraging people and communities to project their own cultural, social and national identity.
The Olympic City
The Olympic setting and staging changed radically during the second part of the
Olympic evolution. The Olympic stadium was not any longer the key element in urban intervention. It became the main component of a series of purpose-made Olympic settings and designs, celebrating the differentiation and supremacy of the Olympic festival. The Olympic site expanded into a place which required the building of sports centres, new parks, subway lines and commercial and residential buildings. The new
Olympic architecture involved design projects that changed the image of both the
Olympic event and the host city. The host city contributed to the image and character of the Olympic event as much as the Olympic event played its role in forming the new
66 identity and image of the host city. The Games brought changes to the city and the city brought changes to the Games.
The evolution of the Olympic Games from a ritual festival to an entire site dedicated to the celebration of the event led to the creation of an autonomous environment integrated into the host city’s existing environment, which is the Olympic City. The Olympic City is a concept as much as a constructed form of reality. It can be compacted into a single site or expanded all over the host city’s territory. Because the programme of the
Olympic event involves both temporary projects and permanent design tasks, the
Olympic City has both ephemeral and long lasting identity.
The Olympic city is not and should never become separable from the cultural and social environment of the city. It should not lead to the production of a ‘sterile utopia’ detached from the city’s social character. Nor should it be concerned with the projection of an image which is visually perfect but socially unrealistic, unclear and dishonest.
In the 1952 Olympics, Helsinki’s symbol of the Games was based on the architecture of the stadium Tower. The observation tower was a 72-metre, reinforced concrete construction, comprising an open staircase leading to the Olympic cauldron at the top.
At the opening ceremony, the last of a series of runners carried the Olympic flame to the top of the tower, creating a dramatic affect. The symbol of the Games appeared on the design of the metal badges and stamps produced worldwide. This was an example that marked the beginning of an age in which the Olympic architecture of the host city started symbolising the identity of a new Olympic reality. Twelve years later, in the
Tokyo Olympics of 1964, the creation of the Olympic setting was taken to even greater
67 extremes. The Kenzo Tange new concept of Olympic architecture was the design of a massive urban project which changed the image of the city and the planning to the
Olympic setting as well.
The Munich 1972 Olympics is another example of an occasion in which the architecture for the Olympic City marked the distinctive identity of its Olympic Games. The translucent plastic suspended tent roof of the stadium, designed by Frei Otto, and the communications tower were the centrepieces of the Olympic image in the 1972
Olympics. They became the basic elements of the composition of the design of the official poster and symbol by the German Graphist, Otl H. Aicher.
Other host cities like Mexico or Seoul preferred to create an Olympic city which projected an aesthetic influenced by their own cultural environment. The influences, the ideas, the functions and requirements that lead to the creation of a certain model of
Olympic city and reality differ from one city to another. Many times the influences have come from the cultural identity of the host city. At other times they are inspired by the innovations in building or communications technology. They may recall the history of the ancient Olympic Games or represent elements of the Olympic rite.
What is interesting to examine in the following examples is the different expressions of each host city in its effort to bring into a symbiosis the words ‘Olympic’ and ‘City’ and to highlight the diversity in the ways that each Olympic city creates its identity and establishes local ‘superiority’. Therefore we should examine the Olympic City as the following:
68 - Firstly we will look at it as an international and global environment related to the
international expectations that the Olympic project requires and the intercultural
audience it is addressed to. We should also look at it as a global environment, in
which the city projects its identity to a global audience (television) becoming
associated with the new forces in communications and marketing (television, ‘top
sponsor programmes’, marketing programmes).
- Secondly it should be examined as a local environment, linked with a degree of
national, regional and urban involvement in the place that hosts the event,
distinguished by its own social, political, cultural, technical and artistic interests.
- Thirdly it should be looked as an Olympic environment, related to the city’s interpretation of the Olympic symbols and rituals and how it expresses Olympic-related emotions and feelings (friendship, peace, youth, meeting place, culture and education)
The Olympic City as an International and Global Environment
The Olympic Games in the second stage of its evolution became an event which saw the number of competitor countries growing constantly. In the 1960 Games in Rome the number of participating countries since the previous contest had jumped from 67 to 83 and the number of athletes from 3,113 to 5,348. Also, with the improvement in the
‘space-shrinking’ technologies, transport and communications, which overcame the problems of time and place the ‘real’ distances between the countries decreased or disappeared. The Olympic City became the centre of the ‘global shrinkage’, with information transmitted to a number of places in the form of ideas, images, meanings and sounds or narratives. In the Rome Olympics 1,235,000 people travelled from different parts of the world to visit the Olympic city where the Games were held. In
69 addition some tens of millions of people had the opportunity to go to the cinema and watch the two-hour long coloured film on the Rome Olympic Games. Others for the first time in the history of Olympics were able to watch the Olympic event ‘live’ from their television.
The international character of the Olympic City had to expand for two main reasons:
First the city was no longer a place to accommodate a small percentage of officials, athletes and journalists who had travelled to take part or see the event. The secularisation of the Games in the first half of the 20 th century had given the Olympic city the role of an international meeting point where millions of people came to celebrate the event. Since that time the local community was requested to incorporate into its programme the provision of transport and accommodation facilities. Major plans and projects like airports, road infrastructure and public transport, which sometimes needed to be carried out from the city’s metropolitan area, had to be adjusted to the requirements of the Games. Often Olympic Cities had to add to the budgeted cost of organising the Games a part for the construction of underground lines, telecommunication centres, residential centres, hotels, or for urban renewal. Also, smaller-budget, design projects had to be undertaken. These are projects which refer to functions such as direction, guidance, information and entertainment and involve tasks such as the design of temporary signposting, information displays, and Olympic pictograms and the information and the ticket sales kiosks. Rented tents and canopies used as rest areas, canteens and temporary stores also have to be included.
For those who watch the Olympic Games from a distance (by television or cinema), the
Olympic city takes on the role of a stage background which is being controlled and
70 reproduced. The broadcast presentations have to take into consideration the host city’s attitudes to the political, economic and cultural contexts that can affect the different cultures’ viewing experiences. The Olympic global experience started to become one of the most representative examples of televised events with a world wide audience. In the
Atlanta-1996 Olympics an estimated number of 214 counties and an (unduplicated) audience of 3.2 billion people watched the event around the world. However the number of people that watch, or are actually capable of watching the event differs from country to country. Therefore there is diversity in the forms of interpreting and experiencing the Games.
The Commercial Environment
The Olympic marketing programme is directly related to the Games international and global environment and the host city’s local or Olympic identity. The Olympic programme includes companies that want to link themselves to Olympism and be projected on a worldwide scale. The temporary international or global environment of the Olympic City becomes the proving ground for international sponsorship and commercial exchange. The advertising of the products and companies that sponsor the
Games often affect the Olympic city’s international environment. Usually national and international sponsors employ elements either from the host city’s life, social or cultural character, or try to associate with the values and goals of Olympism. In the Olympic
Marketing programme frequently appear ideas in commercial design which try to include the humanistic values of friendship, international solidarity, equality and the preservation of human dignity. Also there are examples of products that become temporarily identified with the athletic principles of equal participation, excellence, joy found in effort or the balanced development of the body, will and mind. Successful
71 athletes are sometimes identified as ‘world heroes’ and asked to advertise and promote
Olympic products.
Sponsoring takes place on both intrenational and national levels, occupying in total forty percent of the overall marketing programme. The ‘TOP’ programme is the IOC’s worldwide sponsoring programme, which was first introduced in 1985 and provides to its members exclusive marketing rights and opportunities. It is comprised of world known companies from global industry, such as Coca Cola, IBM, Kodak and Panasonic who can develop marketing programmes on a worldwide scale with the use of the official Olympic symbols. The TOP sponsorship programme is also reinforced by global advertising and public relations programmes. International television and press provide rights to the TOP sponsors of the Olympic Movement.
Apart from the standard TOP partners, there are programmes that support National
Sponsorship in the course of the Olympiad. The National Sponsor programme works in collaboration with the OCOG of the host country and the collaborators or sponsors are allowed to create their own versions of the Olympic city’s official emblems and symbols.
The Olympic City plays an important role in the success of Olympic sponsorship, but world or national sponsorship helps in the promotion and self-projection of the city on an international and global scale. There are often cases where companies or products do not simply use the name, the official emblems and symbols of the host city, but borrow elements that mark the city’s local identity and international ‘prestige’, in order to elevate the city’s strength, liveliness and image as new modern environment.
72 At other times though, there is a cold relationship between the identity of the Olympic city and the image provided by the sponsoring companies. The Olympic city becomes the focal point of commercial attractions. In these cases the name and identity of the
Olympic City is not simply hidden but undermined and degraded. The Olympic city becomes the object of commercial exploitation. The promotion of the Olympic identity and the city’s local identity become replaced by the commercial identity of a company or a product. Commercial products become cores of attraction which reinforce the
‘unreality’ of the Olympic city.
The Local Evironment
The elements that often compose the Olympic city’s local character are not unlinked with the international or Olympic identity of the city. Sometimes the Olympic city has a very lively and purely local character, borrowing signs from its history, tradition, Art and Culture which give the impression of a distinctive and unified local identity to the rest of the world. In most of these cases, the city/country wants to create an impression based on ‘differentiation’ from the other nations and cultures, providing the idea of local closeness and ‘cultural sameness’. The Mexixo 68 Olympic Games is one of the best examples of providing a pure local image to the identity of the Olympic City. Here a local symbol created the overall visual affect for the Games and was applied to many different functions.
The official logo of the Mexico Games designed by Lanze Wyman and Eduardo
Terrazas, is a concept combining the five rings in the creation of a graphic affect which is aesthetically related to the traditional design of the ‘Huichol’ sign. From the logotype evolved a distinctive Olympic alphabet which was used in urban design symbolism and for graphic symbols representing services and facilities. It was used in the Olympic
73 emblems, the torch, the badges even the commemorative souvenirs and the world of fashion with the design clothing. The distinctive ‘Mexico 68 logotype’ was also extended to the interiors of restaurants, city’s museums, and expositon halls.
Another example of ‘cultural differentiation’ was in the Seoul Olympics in 1988. The
South Koreans used elements from their cultural tradition, ancient Eastern philosophies and rites to combine with the identity of their capital. The emblem of the Seoul
Olympics was taken from a traditional Korean motif, which was called, ‘Samt aeguk’ it was used for exterior decorations and the design of handicrafts. Seoul in its programme included the construction of new athletic facilities, competition venues and training sites, but also the improvement of old ones. Most of the new constructions are efforts to combine the old with the new. The design is usually a reflection of an image with forms and motives taken from the past, combined with modern building and communication techniques. For example the Olympic Stadium is described as a structure that represents the image of the refined lines of the Choson Dynasty’s white celadon, a porcelain indigenous to Korea. The promotional programme, the cultural events and the ritual character of the Olympic City were entirely related to the choice of presenting a
‘homogenous’ image of Korea. This image gives us examples by which we can recognise the real spirit of the place and the identity of the Olympic city behind the imperialist Orientalist stereotypes.
Technology and Local ‘Differentiation’
Very often, the development of technology is used to show the Olympic city’s cultural superiority and national power in the areas of communications, information and building construction. The design of the Olympic city becomes based on the twin and
74 often conflicting claims of modernity and nationality. New buildings, innovative ideas and modern techniques usually become metaphors for a city’s new urban and social expression. There is a deliberate emphasis on the exchange of new technical methods, innovative design forms and elements of information technology, across the national borders. In some of these cases is the phenomenon of the creation of a new city -the
Olympic city- within the old city where elements from the present and from the past have to come into reconciliation. The form of a new city rises as an artificial world composed of new visual and formal expressions, but still ‘shaped for human purposes’.
The Olympic City becomes an excuse for driving through a massive package of urban reforms and changes of the city’s past scene.
One of the most distinctive examples is the Munich Olympics. ‘We have made a giant leap forward. We have done 20 years work in 5 years’: the German Mayor declared.
There is no doubt that the games became a challenge to urban renewal, which led to a new underground network and the enlargement of the airport. The Olympic city of
Munich is remembered for its ‘new’ architecture and for the first large-scale use of computer and electronic systems. The giant tent roof designed by Frei Otto covered a total area of 700,000sq ft of the Olympic site, standing as the symbol of the Olympic city and as the centrepiece of the whole Olympic event. Frei Otto’s previous examples of pneumatic architecture and tensioned membrane structures, with the design of the
German Pavillion for the Expo 67 and the Indian Pavillion in Osaka, were experimt grounds to what was actually achieved in the Olympic site project. Frei Otto beleived in modern technology and the use of new materials such as thin cables of high-strength steel or thin membranes of synthetic fabric. His concept was based on ‘how to achieve more with less material and effort’.
75
The architects of the Gunther Behnisch prize-winning scheme for the develoment of the
Olympic site attempted to create one environmental entity. According to their concept
Frei Otto created the design of the largest tensioned membrane structure in the world, which, like the form of some grotesque insect, extended beyond the stadium to cover the areas above a sports hall and a swimming pool.
The application of new building techniques into large scale projects were not the only signs from the Olympic project that follow the steps of technology. Munich was characterised as the first ‘all plastics’ and ‘all technology’. Lightheartedness, a positive psychological climate, relaxation and lack of pressure was the message that the organisers of the Munich Olympics wanted to send. The overall concept of design was based on technique and contemporary artistic tendencies rather than past aesthetics and traditional symbols.
Prefabricated structures with ephemeral applications marked the Olympic city’s temporary character, for example design of prefabricated polygonal living cells serving as rest rooms, information kiosks and temporary stores. Finally the design of the famous pictograms created by Otl Aitcher, was another sign of communication based on visual interpretations. The Munich pictograms were applied to the signposting of various public functions, urban services and facilities. What identified Aitcher’s design was simplicity combined with the use of a successfully comprehensive, internationally understood, graphic language.
76
The Olympic Environment
The main aim in the display of an Olympic environment is the creation of a homogenous reality which guarantees the repetition of the Olympic symbols and rites attempting to hold their meaning eternal and constant. The role of the Olympic environment is the promotion of the Olympic Movement, the Games and the goals of
Olympism.
There is no pure Olympic environment which is separable from the Olympic city’s local, global or international environment. The Olympic environment aims at maintaining the integrity and value of Olympic symbols, such as the five interlocking rings, the emblems, the marks and the overall Olympic imagery. The design of the
Olympic environment is incorporated either in the projection of the host city’s local programme or in the promotion of the Olympic Marketing plan.
The first case involves the building of an Olympic environment within the local bounds of the city. This aims at the creation of a reality which regulates the use and occurrence of Olympic symbols and rituals and in addition spreads information about the local spirit of the Olympic city. The Olympic environment looks at the role of the host city in the process of building a unified Olympic community.
The Olympic Charter provides the foundation and the encouragement for the development of an Olympic Envronment. On the other hand, the host city becomes the display of a reality where local symbols can co-exist with Olympic symbols, providing a coherent Olympic and local environment. The programme includes the design of
77 central symbolic elements such as the logotype, the Olympic mascot, the torch, posters and other graphic applications all of which are involved in temporary and permanent urban transformations.
The logotype is the most central element in the effort to provide the host city with an
Olympic Identity. The logotype is usually the host city’s Official Emblem. It combines the symbol and the name of the city with the Olympic rings.
The Olympic torch and the Olympic burner are protagonists of a tradition that has continued since the custom was reborn in the Berlin Olympics of 1936. Both tasks have to fulfil technical and aesthetic requirements. The function of the Olympic torch is to carry the flame from Olympia to the city of destination and it has the important task of guaranteeing that the flame will never go out. The Olympic burner is the place, usually inside the stadium, that will keep the flame alight, for the duration of the Games. The
‘Olympic burner’ project requires the completion of a task in which the design of the burner (sometimes 20 metres high), harmonises with the architecture of the stadium and agrees aesthetically with the overall image of the Olympic city.
‘Olympic image’ or ‘ Olympic look’ are characterisations used very regularly to show the Olympic city’s intentions to create its corporate identity. It is a design programme which aims at the creation of a distinguishing image for the Games of each Olympiad. It usually has a temporary application, being used on banners, decorations on streets and in public spaces during the 17-day Olympic festival. For example ‘A Quilt of Leaves’ was Atlanta’s visual message. It was used in 1996 as the city’s ‘Olympic look’, in order to represent Atlanta’s character and natural beauty, the cultural heritage of the
78 American South and the symbolic meaning of the ‘laurel’ and the ‘olive branch’ in the
Ancient Games.
The Olympic environment of the host city is also used for commercial purposes. The
Olympic symbols, the emblems, the marks, the Olympic imagery and look, are very often used as sources of finance and promotion of the Games on a worldwide basis. The
Olympic Marketing and TOP Partners programme have the right to use Olympic imagery and symbols in advertising, promotions and for the sale of Partners’ products or services. At the same time the IOC puts certain guidelines and regulations on the use of the Olympic marks and symbols, in order to maintain the unique identity of the
Olympic Games.
The designs and applications of the commercial programmes aim to incorporate
Olympic symbols and images in their commercial communication strategy. In this case a shared Olympic and international environment provides people with the belief of
‘being there’.The Olympic city gives the impression of a common ground, an international meeting point where people share the same Olympic-related emotions or feelings, based on an Olympic heritage of symbols, myths, rites, images and sounds.
During the next few paragraphs we are going to focus on four examples, examining how each one, with the use of different motives and means, created a different and distinctive form of Olympic City. In all four examples the host City itself has an active role in the setting and celebration of the event, but for different reasons. Evolution through differentiation is the perspective from which these examples are examined,
79 with less interest in how the Olympic event itself has progressed technically or historically.
80 The Olympic City of Berlin 1936
The Political and Social Meaning of the Berlin 1936 Games
The celebration of the 1936 Games was of a great political and social importance for
Germany and for the first years of the National Socialist Regime. The Games were used as an opportunity to celebrate and demonstrate the country’s new profile, to show that the new Germany in a spirit of peace and order could produce a festival that the rest of the world could easily envy. ‘Olympia a national mission’ was the slogan addressed to every German in order to inform the nation about the requirements of such a huge project. The projects for the construction of the Reich Sport Field and the plans for the creation of the Olympic City’s image, often signify a degree of megalomania focusing on presenting the political, military and economic power of Germany.(i2.1)
After a period of depression between 1918-1933 the mid-30s was a time that Germany seemed to have conquered many of its social problems which had been caused due to widespread unemployment, affliction and starvation. The new picture of Germany made the majority of the German population feel enthusiastic about the benefits of National
Socialism. Despite many dictatorial incidents such as the abolition of all free unions, the terrorism and the lack of free press, it seemed that the masses were attracted to
Hitler’s ideas and visions. The life of the Germans was getting better at that time, having overcome big problems of unemployment and poverty. The German public became faithful to the political and social order that Hitler restored devoted to the idea that ‘a new nation has arisen’.
81 ‘The necessity for political and material reform became more and more urgent. Political murders became a daily occurrence. The records of crime assumed alarming proportions. Moral depravity was also on the increase. Bolshevik agents were unhampered in their work of preaching and mocking at all faith. The theatres and the cinemas were used for productions of an immoral and obscene character. The position was hopeless and nothing but a dark and dreary future awaited the population.’(ref2.1)
Soon Germany became the land of ‘social and political peace’ because order was restored, an order which was hiding behind incidents such as the killing of those who were enemies of the National Socialists.(ref2.2)
Industry was revived and the transport was modernised. New public buildings, new transport, new industry had all become part of Hitler’s vision of Germany’s renewal.
The National Socialists were very successful with their propaganda, not missing any opportunity to show the country’s developing power, social upheaval and reconstruction. Therefore, they managed soon to earn the admiration of people inside and outside the borders of Germany.
Hitler managed to persuade public opinion about how much he wanted peace. In a speech he gave a year before the Games in 1935, he said: ‘Nationalist Socialist
Germany wants peace, because of its fundamental convictions. It wants peace owing to the realisation of the simple primitive fact that no war would be likely essentially to alter the distress in Europe… The principal effect of every war is to destroy the flower of the nation. Germany needs peace and desires peace.’(ref2.3)
82 Before and during the organisation of the Olympic Games, Berlin had become the centre of Hitler’s ideas of social reconstruction. The Olympic City of Berlin became an instrument for showing the capital’s reformed image as a monumental city and a place suitable to host any kind of festive event. During the Games, Berlin was transformed into a totally mechanised environment of ‘parade and spectacle’.(i2.2,2.3) The city itself played a double role in the creation of an atmosphere of festivity and national superiority at the same time . The city’s streets, the wide public spaces and gathering points which were used for the celebration of the Olympic festival served simultaneously as arenas of political propaganda, with the swastikas and the Olympic flags flying side by side.
The Olympic City of Berlin
The 1936 Olympic Games used the Olympic Games and the image of Berlin as a forum for National Socialist Propaganda, demonstrating the supremacy of the Aryan Race.
The image of the Berlin Olympic City joined with the ideal of the ‘City Beautiful
Movement’ which became particularly well known during the age of the Great
Dictators. The totalitarian dictators believed that the role of planning within the metropolis had to be ‘monumental’ imposing their megalomaniac visions of glory on their capitals.(ref2.4)
The theoretical ideas of the Nazis about the city were very anti-urban and there was a tendency towards the development of self-sufficient rural towns of 20,000 inhabitants whre the fearures of urban and rural life would be best combined. There is an early Nazi statement at the end of the 1920’s, giving the description of the city as a ‘melting pot of
83 all evil…of prostitution, bars illness ,movies, Marxism, Jews, strippers, Negro dancers and all the distinguishing offspring of so called ‘modern art’.(ref2.5)
The Nazis’ plan was to remove the productive population to the country side while the city and especially Berlin would perform a psychological function, as a meeting point for ceremonies and parades. The design of vast public areas and triumphant monumental buildings was part of Hitler’s planning ideas. When he was asked by an audience of construction workers in 1939, ‘Why always the biggest?’ he gave the following reply, ‘I do this to restore to each individual his self-respect’.(ref2.6)
The Olympic site
For the first time in the Modern Olympic history, there was an example in which the planning of the Olympic site came to match the host city’s plans for urban reconstructionand the city’s identity of renewal, inside and outside the borders of
Germany. Berlin offered the first large sports complex, situated on the outskirts of the city in naturally suitable scenery. The design proposal for the Olympic City came reconciled with the general plans for urban reformation, combining the best features of
Berlin’s urban and rural charcter.
The Grunewald Race course, the site that had been earlier chosen for the organisation of the games in 1916, became the location for the 1936 Olympic project, the Reich Sport
Field.(i2.5) The actual project took place close to the edge of the city, in Grunewald, an untouched area covered with woods and meadows. The Olympic site was located at the most elevated point of Grunewald, 97,5 feet higher than the city of Berlin. The construction of new roads and the provision of access to the underground and railway
84 station became essential in order to connect the site of the Reich Sport Field with the centre of the city and the city itself with other cities.
Monumental architecture
The Reich was in charge of the whole construction project, even though the direction of the execution of the project was in the hands of the Minister of Interior. Part of the given task in the construction of the site was to ensure that ‘the new structure should blend harmoniously with the architecture of Berlin’and that the athletic organisation, the buildings and the technical equipment ‘should all be welded into a pleasing artistic and organic whole’.(ref2.7)
The buildings of the olympic site were of a monumental character, as a result of the task they had to fulfil, in order to bring close the architecture of the city with the one of the site. The tendency towards monumental art and architecture can also been seen as a result of the organisers’ wish to create an architecture based on neo-classicism, inspired by the architecture of classicism in antiquity. The Nazis proclaimed themselves ‘rivals of the Classical Greeks as leaders of a golden age’. The style of modern Architecture was prohibited by the Nazis, giving way to proposals inspired by neo-classicism.
The new stadium was the largest built until that time, a big part of which was built of natural stone rather than concrete. According to the ‘Games 1936 Official Report’, the approach to the stadium is described as ‘a model of construction planning’. ‘The approaching visitor sees the large open square paved with white and red flagstones and lined with flagpoles along its entire length. The square slopes upward, and at the highest point is the stone structure of the stadium. In the centre are two towers, 156 feet
85 high.(i2.4) Between them, the five Olympic rings are suspended. The Bell Tower, the
Symbol of the Reich Sport Field, can been seen between the towers.’(ref2.8) The stadium was not the only building with a monumental character. The Bell Tower was another significant building of monumental architecture. It was 247 feet high and contained a bell loft for the ‘Olympic Bell’, the symbol of the 1936 Olympic
Games.(i2.6,2.7)
Another Olympic construction interesting to point at is the architecture of the Dietrich
Eckart open air theatre, a space inspired by the architecture of the ancient Greek theatre.
It was the place where different cultural and artistic performances and the staging of the gymnastic contests were taking place. Classical art was the inspiration fot the design of the sculptural wall at the entrance of the theatre.(i2.8)
The Olympic Bell became the symbol of the Games in 1936, replacing the earlier proposed symbol of the ‘Reich Eagle’ and the Brandenburg Gate. The organisers tried to force the effectiveness of this new symbolclaiming that: The Olympic Bell was added to the three symbols that the reviver of the Games had created, (the Olympic rings, the flame and the oath)’.(ref2.9) The Bell weighed 30,50 pounds of steel and was characterised as ‘the herald of Olympic peace and honourable competition’.(ref2.10)
(i2.9) A whole ceremony was organised - the Triumphal Procession of the Bell- during which the Bell was carried to the main squares and boulevards of Berlin, until its final destination and elevation to the Bell Tower. The Bell Tower was the highest point of the Reich Sports Field and its bell was to be connected to a winding wheel, which was in turn to be swung by an electric motor.
86 As we mentioned before, the Berlin Games were an oppoortunity to renew the identity of the city, but most of all to promote the city’s new image, the city of ‘parade and spectacle’, to the rest of the world. The decoration of the main streets and public spaces of Berlin, cleaned and dressed for a whole series of festivals and ceremonies had one primary purpose: to show that the fourth largest, at that time, city in the world was the saviour and creator of social peace and culture and that Berlin had been turned into a city which had recovered from the image of the early 20 th Century ‘slum city’, surrounded by poverty, depression, and decline, giving way to a city that had managed to establish social and political harmony.(i2.10)
Accommodation in Berlin was cheap and readily available, and hospitality was lavish.
Visitors could travel from places all over Europe, due to the advanced means of transportation. Berlin had been transformed to an utterly safe city, cleaned and protected from criminal incident even begging, which had been outlawed since 1933.
The Decoration of the City
Berlin’s decoration was an opportunity for national propaganda, linking the festive character of the Olympic event with the city’s reformed architecture and urban identity.
The ‘Via Triumphalis’ can be characterised as the city’s ‘monumental corridor’. It was conceptualised as a ceremonial boulevard, ten miles long, connecting the central streets and squares of the new and old parts of the city, passing through the colonnaded
‘Brandenburg Gate’ and eventually reaching the sporting complex of the Reich Sports
Field. The several squares and grand boulevards provided a space suitable for the assembly of vast numbers of party functionaries and other group gatherings. From the
87 one end of the Via Triumphalis to the other there were rows of large Olympic flags mixed with banners of equivalent size, holding the black swastika.(i2.11, 2.12)
The square in front of the Town Hall, on Konig Strasse was festooned with 20 feet long banners of all the participating nations and round wooden shields attached to the masts boring the coats of arms of the different countries. There was also an Olympic fountain designed in stone and bronze and placed in front of the Town Hall. The decoration of the Lustgarten square was in the hands of Albert Speer, the main architect behind
Hitler’s vision of Berlin’s vision. ‘This square with its large stands and the Olympic
Fire Altar was given an impressive character. Six metres long German and Olympic flags were suspended at regular intervals along the festive way.’(ref2.11) The
Brandenburg Gate, the symbol of the city of Berlin, was decorated with swastika flags and green garlands.(i2.13) The last square before the Reich Sports Field, the Adolf
Hitler Platz, had concentric circles of flags erected on the central grass plot. The outer masts were used for the flags of the participating nations, the next circle for the
Olympic flags and in the centre stood a round tower, 65,5 feet high, covered with oak leaves, swastika flags and large gilded national symbols.
In Berlin’s Official report, at a section dedicated to the writing of the decoration of
Berlin during the Olympic period, it has been claimed that: ‘Everything possible was done to improve the aspect of Berlin, and it can be asserted without fear of contradiction that the capital city and its principal street achieved a festive character such as neither the local population nor the guests from abroad had ever before witnessed. Berlin certainly did justice to the great tradition of the Olympic ideals.’(ref2.12)
88
Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia
Leni Riefenstahl was the maker of the film ‘Olympia’ which was released in 1938; she is characterised as a priestess of artistic film devoted to sports, but also as a user of art in sports for political propaganda. Adolf Hitler appointed Riefenstahl before the start of the games as a director of the film, which was funded through the Ministry of
Propaganda. Her concept of the film ‘Olympia’ was based on three main subjects: the struggle for victory in the Games, the beauty that this struggle brings about and finally the idea of the Games. In her film it becomes obvious the identification of the Olympic ideal with the German ideal and of Olympia with the new image of Germany.
The film itself created a beautiful impressionof the 1936 Games associating the festival of antiquity with the celebration of the Games in modern times. It captures the powerful emotional impact of the Olympic ceremony, by giving to it an idyllic sense of reality.
For many this idyllic picture of the 1936 games is created in order to celebrate the achievements of the Third Reich.
The idea of the torch ceremony, which was first applied during the 1936 Games, occupied a basic part of the film in Riefenstahl’s attempt to define the ritual effect of the modern Games. The film pictures the whole sequence of the lighting of the flame, with the creation of an idealised vision of the ceremony. During the film, the flame gives a halo-like glow and the succession of runners who carry the flame, set in a background changing from the temples of Delphi to a dramatic landscape of mountain, wood and seashore. Following this idyllic scene is the picture- of the actual torch
89 procession starting fromGreece and then continuing to other European capitals until its final destination-Berlin.
The film’s critical reviews start from the moment the cameras reach the Olympic stadium of Berlin. The flag of the swastika fills the screen and there are aerial shots of the crowded stadium, mixed with those of the Olympic Bell. After the film falls silent, the film records Hitler’s speech, declaring the opening of the games, with synchronous sound.
There are different versions of the film and some of them do not elevate Hitler beyond the importance of any head of state. However as Taylor Downing concludes, in his book
‘Olympia’: ‘Despite this, the viewer is still left with a sense of Hitler presiding over the
Games. Even when he is not seen, his presence is felt’.(ref2.12) It is not much the number of shots with the portrait of Hitler, the swastika signs and the pictures of the stadium which give the impression of the film being propagandist, but its subjective associations. The film, even though is significant for its technicality and the artistic use of the camerawork, it is a political film because it was set up for political motives.
The Olympic city of Berlin stands in the history of Olympism as an example in which symbols and visual forms served as a mean for political propaganda. Something which in our days has become well known, in the eyes of Coubertin, sixty five years ago was an oblivion. There is evidence showing Coubertin’s denial to admit that the 1936 were a case of political exploitation and a socialist propaganda. In an interview that Coubertin had given to a french journalist in the parisien daily, Le Journal, he had stated: ‘What
90 the Games disfigured? The Olympic idea sacrificed to propaganda? That is utterly wrong. The wonderful success of the Berlin Games has served the Olympic Ideal magnificently...’(ref2.13) Furthermore, after the completion of the Games, Coubertin had claimed, referring to the link between ideal and reality, that ‘Now, Berlin has made this link a permanent feature of the Games, through such gallant and utterly successive initiatives as the Race of the Sacred Torch from Olympian and the magnificent festival held in the monumental stadium on the opening night of the Games.’ Finally, Coubertin thanked the people and their leader for ‘what they had just accomplished’.(ref2.14)(i2.14, 2.15,2.16)
Coubertin’s opinion on the Berlin Games is possibly the one that can best prove his utopian thinking and, according to Yves Pierre Boulogne, his position as a ‘prisoner of his own utopia’(ref2.15).
91 The Olympic City of Mexico 1968
The Meaning of the ‘Mexico 1968 Olympics’
The Olympic reality, in the second part of its evolution, had already become exclusive of the wealthy nations. The popularisation of the Olympics and the continuous development of the Olympic reality as a contest and as a spectacle, turned the Olympic
City into a proving ground of new ideas in the architecture and the design of the host city’s visual identity, where a unique synthesis of shape, technique and construction had to be achieved. The design of sports forums and parks and the creation of a visual and symbolic language had to do full justice to the augmented requirements of the Games.
The transformation of the host city into an Olympic festival and into a vast arena for sport and spectacle turned the Olympic City into an expensive task requiring vast sums of money.
The Games of 1968 opened in Mexico City. After the examples of two Olympiads, in
Rome and Tokyo, in which the Olympic City had become an agent of a great technological progress, demonstrated impeccable organisation and efficiency, Mexico came across a great challenge: the Olympic City had to be carried out with the high level of quality and organisation with which it had been organised in extensively developed countries. ‘The Olympic Games are really one step further in our development’ ‘We are a developing country: we are a building country’ ‘All the installations have a direct use for Mexico, therefore they are an investment and not an expense’. Those were the words that came as a reply to the question of how it was that
Mexico, with its economic problems, had undertaken such a large-scale enterprise.
92 The management and the organisation of the Games together with the planning of the site, the Olympic constructions and image were entrusted to the architect, Pedro
Ramirez Vasquez. Ramirez Vasquez was not only recognised as a talented architect, but also as an artist who had projected himself into decorating, graphic and urban design.
Even though he was inspired by the architectonic past of Mexico and he liked the use of local materials, he saw architecture as communication of a universal language, by providing the means for immediate action in the direction of people- that is in the discovery of a graphic language. Above all he was recognised as a designer who is perfectly aware of his social responsibilities, the needs of a growing population and the possibilities offered by the advances in industry and technology. The organisation of the
Mexico Games is an example which reflects Ramirez Vasquez key concern: the creation of an Olympic environment representing both the local community and the
Olympic world.
Unlike the previous examples of Olympic cities which stood more as show cases of an advanced technology, impressive sports architecture and new design methods, Mexico turned the Olympic City into a cultural and visual occasion. The 1968 Olympic City aimed at the creation of an atmosphere of happiness and hospitality where the graphics, the ‘party’ decorations and the concept of ‘fiesta’ would set the visual pace. The creators of the city’s image and visual effect made a use of a local cultural and aesthetic language, inspired by the history, the social life, the art, the architecture, the natural shapes and colours of Mexico. The Mexico Olympic City was not compressed into a single site, serving a single activity or function. The design was a combination of the city’s cultural and Olympic identity. It was integrated into different disciplines, from
93 the design of signs, publications, to the planning of the urban environment, the building and the decoration of external and internal spaces.
The president of the Organisation of the Games, Ramirez Vasquez, defining the responsibilities of the Olympic City as an urban and Olympic environment, claimed that: ‘They were of organisation and, especially, of ‘live urbanisation’, since it was necessary to organise in Mexico City the circulation of the traffic, the transportation, the signalling, the preparation of the public spaces and the urban image order that, within the city, the authorities, its inhabitants and its visitors could enjoy an event of world- wide importance with full effectivity and within the economic possibilities of a developing country; efficiency but without extravagance’(ref2.16)
The Planning of the Olympic City
The planning of the Olympic City is identified more with the idea of transforming the entire City into a site of a both cultural and universal festival, marked with the distinctive personality of the host country. The main planning ideas aimed at the creation of an Olympic City, where ‘all nations , all creeds, all ideologies, all customs and tastes live together’.(ref2.17)(i2.17) A place for ‘all people’ and at the same time a place that does not lose its own identity, ‘preserving those differences that have always made it so attractive to visitors’. The Games were not restricted into a single site. The
Olympic City expanded a series of new and old athletic sites all over Mexico city to which artistic, spiritual and cultural activities were added in order to emphasise the city’s local identity and intention to extend its image world-wide.
94 A special urban design program was made in order to highlight the identity of the
Olympic City and distinguish it from that of the City itself. Apart from the redevelopment of the different Olympic sites, another important matter was the organisation of the urban traffic, helping visitors and participants to locate and identify the roads that led to the competition sites. The organisers came up with a permanent solution: they created a colour-coded system, colouring the principal traffic circuits and helping visitors to find their way around. (i2.18)
The historical evolution and progress of Mexico into a modern nation that can impress with its individuality, but at the same time participate in the universal language of fashion, technology and modernity, was another point that the Olympic city wanted to reflect. Mexico already had many of the facilities required for the organisation of the
Games. The Olympic city made use of existing structures and sites, the best of which was the elliptical stadium of 1962, which had to be enlarged to hold more spectators.
Even though many of the projects had to deal with the improvement of the old settlements, a whole new programme was concerned with the planning of new installations, new facilities and new attractions. The design of the Sports Palace for basketball competitions, the swimming pool and the gymnasium complex are all examples of an impressive new architecture.(i2.19)The Sports Palace was the most impressive of all the facilities for the 1968 Games, characterised as a functional and at the same time beautiful architectonic conception, where new technical solutions were proposed. The building creates a unique visual effect from the contrasts found in the connection of the building’s reinforced concrete substructure with a tubular steel dome and the material effect of a copper roof. Due to its impressive construction and building technique, the Sports Palace was often considered as one of the symbols.
95
To the list of these three main examples of permanent architecture we can add the building of the Olympic village which was afterwards converted into middleclass flats.(i2.20)
The Olympic City’s Visual Identity
Even though the most impressive aspect of the Tokyo 1960 was the City’s new
Olympic architecture, in the case of the Mexico 1968, it was the creation of the
Olympic city’s festive and visual identity. Mexico aimed at the development of ideas that would make the atmosphere of the event memorable and would give to the city a new facade. The visual presence of the Olympic city became evident both from the city’s visual planning and from the actual celebration of the Olympic event. The programme involved the creation of symbols, information signs, graphic codes, decorative motives and displays fit into the Olympic City’s architecture and adapted the city’s public areas, central places and main streets.
For the first time in the history of the Olympic City a synthesis was achieved between the fields of planning and architecture and the application of the decorative, plastic and graphic arts.
Arts and crafts had always been an integral part of Mexican Architecture, mainly characterised by ‘love for colour’ and respect for the texture of materials. The application into architecture of a variety of materials, colours, forms and polychromatic decorative designs led to the creation of an entirely distinct and artistic style. Very often wall surfaces, building facades, were treated as large mural compositions, reflecting
96 thematic scenes based on religion, mythology, features of everyday life and customs.
Even though after 1930 there was a tendency towards modern architecture, turning against tradition, in the 1950s there was a return to ‘plastic integration’, striving to find the pictorial element in the use of mosaic and sculptures.
The Olympic Games became an opportunity to emphasise Mexico’s unique artistic style, integrating architecture, decoration and graphic arts into a single context: the
Olympic City’s visual identity. The decoration of the external wall of the Aztec
Stadium is a typical example of sculpture and monumental mural painting-what the muralist himself called ‘escaltopintura’(sculptural painting).(2.21) The design of the external wall borrows ideas from the history of Sports in Mexico and is concerned with subjects of sport, culture and peace.
However, the main characteristic of the Olympic City’s allegorical and symbolic character was the production of the ‘Mexico 68’ graphic programme. The main two graphic elements of this programme were the design of the ‘dove of peace’ and the
‘Mexico 1968’ logotype.(i2.23) Both became symbols of the Mexico Olympic Identity and they were adapted into the planning, the urban design, the decoration and the programme for the promotion of the Olympic City.
The design of the dove became the graphic symbol of peace for the 1968 games. The design of a ‘white dove’ was applied into various decorative motives , placed usually on a blue or green background. They were usually used in spaces where athletic and cultural events were held or in the main streets served as guides for reaching these installations.(i2.25)
97
Another characteristic of the peace campaign was the setting of giant billboard posters on the top of buildings, in public areas, in the streets of residential areas and in working-class communities. ‘Everything is possible in peace’ was the central theme of the campaign which included photography representing people’s everyday social and cultural activities, escaping in this way from the ‘stereotyped and false image of happiness’.(ref2.18)(i2.26)
The main purposes of the graphic programme was to create:
-a symbolic language, which could be easily understood and internationally recognised, but which could also maintain its unique character;
-an Olympic language, giving to the host City the opportunity to demonstrate and promote the values of peace, brotherhood, mutual respect found in the philosophy of
Olympism;
-a local language, marked with the distinctive personality of the host City, based on the concept of fiesta, including colours, visual ideas, decorative techniques, traditions and customs that signify Mexico’s visual identity;
-social language, a campaign intended to elevate the city’s general standard of living, in an effort to improve community relations and empower participation in urban public life. It would also be a shared language with a commemorative function, reminding the people about the community’s most prominent historical events and traditions;
98
-a flexible language, adjusted into the architecture, the town planning and the promotional and cultural programme. It would be a simple graphic language used on everything from billboards to post-cards, street signs, decorations, information kiosks, clothes and souvenirs.(i2.24)
The design of ‘Mexico 68’ was inspired by Mexican Huichol art, and all the graphics of the 1968 Games were created around the original Huichol concept. A very wide range of colours was applied over the design, creating a repetition through the same image and the same lines but bringing a variety through colour. There was a dual significance in the use of colour: First, colour variety as a characteristic of Mexico’s visual language, created the impression of a festive atmosphere and commonly celebration. Secondly ‘colour’ served as an international code system, used in order to assign different functions or activities. In that way something that is signified as local and festive becomes also international and widely popular.
The creation of a ‘live urbanisation’ was one of the principal aims of the organisation of the Olympic City of Mexico. In order to achieve this, an important role was played by the signalling and the preparation of the public spaces and the urban image of the city.
The Department of Urban Design was responsible for the interior and exterior decorations of the competition sites and in the symbolic colour designated for each sport. An impressive example is the painting of vast surfaces serving as entrances or access areas to the stadiums in the concentric pattern of the ‘Mexico 68’ logotype.(i2.22) The ‘Mexico 68’ sign was also employed in street furniture, banners, three dimensional replicas, information booths and lamps, spread all over the city.
99
However, the preparation of the Olympic City’s temporary image was not only an international invitation to a temporary Olympic festival, promoting peace, but also a campaign for social justice, fighting social polarisation, bringing people back to their history and traditions and to the concept of ‘fiesta’ as a shared form of language and social participation. Mexico’s population explosion had brought accelerated growth of cities. As a result many buildings and public spaces had lost the traditional charm found in the old community, and they became threatened by conventional and uninspired modern constructions. ‘Live urbanisation’, was seen as a solution, to create an environment characterised by the use of great open spaces, combinations of colour and use of symbolic art. The Olympic City itself was seen as an opportunity to reveal people’s national pride through their cultural expressions found in the shared language of music, dancing, seasonal festivals, popular arts and crafts. The transformation of the
Olympic City into a cultural, artistic and colourful festival was an expression as well as a personal means of encouraging people to identify with their community.
Apart from the graphic programme applied into the competition sites, the streets and the public areas of the Olympic City, individual works of art were employed everywhere in town. The integration of art in public areas became an essential part of the Olympic
City. The design of the ‘Red Sun’(i2.270, a 24-metre high sculpture placed in front of the Aztec Stadium was an example of a large-scale, abstract work ‘the size of which corresponds to the dimensions of the Stadium’.(ref2.19)
Another example of large scale sculpture is found in the creation of Mexico’s traditional ‘Judas’ pyrotechnic figures (i2.28), made of reinforced fibreglass. The
100 sculptures represented players of different sports and were placed near the sites, serving as landmarks for participants and visitors.
Another example of three-Dimensional art used to indicate the different sites was the design of huge plastic balloons placed on the top of the sports installations. The 10- metre in diameter Balloon with the ‘Mexico 68’ sign printed on it, could be easily identified from a distance, signalling the location of the site at the same time.
101 The Olympic City of Munich 1972
Munich was the first Olympic City to use a centrally-located site and become associated with the creation of an interdependent area within the city, with its distinguished design identity. The design concept emphasised the idea of not having the ‘Olympic Ciy’ and the ‘city’ as two spaces rolled into one, but as polar opposites existing side by side contrasting the ‘old’ with the ‘new’. The Munich ’72 Games, under the influence of such radical phenomena as computer technology and automation, worked on the design of a new style and form for the Olympic City. The Olympic City became integrated into the city as a new form, defining the city’s historical progress and urban development.
The creation of a vast central area, the design of anti-monumental megastructures and the use of a simplified and distinctive graphic language were Munich’s key design solutions, concentrating all new ideas into a single image or visual system. The design of a single Olympic complex and a coherent visual identity was reconciled with the vision of creating a technological utopia and an urban environment which would keep in tune with the ‘new’.(i2.30) The president of the German Organising Committee,
Willi Daume had claimed before the Games: ‘The Olympic idea needs a new image- evolved out of Coubertin’s intentions but transformed to suit modern requirements...
Munich is staging the Games between the past and the future....We must ensure that the
Munich Games open up paths leading to an Olympic conception keeping with the times.’(ref2.20)
The Creation of a ‘New Image’
In the following paragraphs we will examine what gave to the Munich Games a distinguished design identity and which elements an Olympic conception was
102 composed of, based on what Willi Daume regarded as the most significant task which was ‘keeping in touch with the times’.(ref2.21)
During the seventies, Munich had rapidly developed into a city with a population of more than a million people. It was the third largest industrial city in Germany and had often been called ‘the unofficial capital of Germany’, due to its rich cultural identity and the variation in exhibitions and cultural events, held in the city’s galleries and museums. Munich had also been characterised as a town with many silhouettes. This is because it is a mixture of different architecture styles, each stemming from a particular period of time. The city owed and still owes its festive character to the influences of
Munich’s Gothic epoch, represented by Baroque and Rococo styles in art and architecture. It has often been said that Munich had always been successful in
‘harmonising the best of the old with the best of the new.’
However it was believed that ‘the cultural part of the programme must bear the image of the times’ and that ‘those elements of timeless validity which are appropriate to all periods’ should be the only ones to borrow from the cultural heritage of the past. The
Olympic City did not draw any inspiration from the city’s existing historical and cultural past, as far as concerns its architecture and visual identity. The Olympic city aimed at creating an image that served as a bridge between the past and the future, by using new methods and techniques. The main focus was on the creation of a festival of the ‘elite’. Therefore, the Olympic City’s visual identity played a complementary role, reinforcing the city’s atmosphere of gaiety and harmony, by bringing out the Games character as a brilliant and carefree gathering.
103 The Olympic Site
The Olympic City of Munich managed to create a visual profile influenced by two superimposed impressions: the one of a great building site, open to cosmopolitanism, dedicated to the celebration of Olympic world festival with facilities, accommodation and transport for thousands of athletes and visitors; the other one of an old town which wanted to keep its historical and cultural character as something separate, without losing its original beauty, its particular charm and its inherited festive character by mixing with new invented forms or styles. Since the second half of the 19 th Century and until World War II, Munich had seen many changes, caused by the forces of industrialisation and urbanisation. A similar situation was repeated during the 60’s and
70’s when the town saw an extraordinary growth of its population. The main fear was that Munich, especially by becoming the host city to such a great event, would lose its general attraction. There was widespread support of the idea that: ‘Munich must remain
Munich, even if in the light of the statistics given, it would appear to be nothing more than a rapidly expanding machine for living and working’.(ref2.22)
However the organisers of the Games believed that Munich was the ideal environment to host the event and at the same time the organisation of the event would be a great opportunity for the ‘Munich of tomorrow’. It was believed that Munich’s atmosphere of cosmopolitanism, liberal ideas and enjoyment of life could help a place to transcend all frontiers and differences between nations and races and therefore, turn into an ideal
Olympic City. When Willi Daume was asked a year before the Games to justify why
Munich would stand as the most suitable Olympic City among all the other West
German cities, he replied: ‘Munich is a cosmopolitan town that nevertheless has a
104 character all its own-a source of general attraction... The Munich way of life is appreciated by visitors all over the world’.(ref2.23)
The answer to the general demand claiming that the Olympic plans should not spoilt the town’s existing character led to the conception of an autonomous Olympic site and the design of an Olympic City which would not spread throughout the city’s geographical territory. The design plans did not borrow any visual characteristics from the city’s existing cultural and historical identity. They were based on recreational planning, radical and experimental ideas, making use of the advances in building technology, where the role of the designer would be joined with that of the scientist or the inventor.
‘We want Munich to show that the Olympic Games are a part of modern life, a signpost to the future and not merely a ritual encumbered with tradition’.(ref2.24)
At the same time it was considered very fortunate that the Olympic City would be set in a central part of the town, requiring a minimum of travel from the town centre for both athletes and visitors. It was believed to be lucky that: ‘The city is big enough to accommodate the guests, but not so large that Olympia would be lost, as in a megalopolis.’ Munich managed to create a sectorally grouped city, similar to the planning of ‘Olympia’, by converting a vast space and turning into an autonomous city.
In this way the Olympic City, in relation to the dimensions of the place that would accommodate the event, could still be clearly perceived without, however, spoiling the city’s existing atmosphere and historical past.
Even though the organisers of the Games claimed that ‘Olympia should not be lost’,(ref2.25) the plans for the design and building of the Olympic City did not intend
105 to draw inspiration from any classical models or from any of Coubertin’s visions of
Modern Olympia. The organisers believed ‘The building project had to conform to the spirit of the times and to serve the needs of modern man and modern games’.(ref2.26)
The chosen site of ‘Oberwiesenfeld’, a previously undeveloped area, expanding over three million square metres and located only three km away from the centre, played a key role in the development of the ‘right festive environment for the encouragement of an international encounter’.(ref2.27) The intention to create an autonomous design language was projected into the Olympic City’s architecture and graphic identity, encouraging the creation of an anti-monumental and international environment with clear territorial barriers, but also of a simplified and individual image.
Despite the fact that the Olympic City was concentrated mainly into one central site and the rest of the town was less involved in the whole event, there should be mentioned the work made to improve the infrastructure and circulation of the town itself. Many open spaces had been cleared, new underground lines were constructed, main streets were widened and new bridges and pedestrian zones were built.
The Design Plan
Furthermore the post Olympic utilisation of the Olympic city was a matter that played a considerable part in the overall design plan. From an early stage the organisers and planners of the Olympic site had to have an answer to the following question: ‘The
Olympic park: sixteen days of games, and then?’(ref2.28) ‘Are we due to a post-
Olympic hangover?’(ref2.29) The organisers aimed at filling the empty spaces of the calendar after the end of the Games with the hosting of other athletic events. In any case it was believed that the building of a large stadium was a necessity because ‘Munich
106 was the only large German city without one’.(ref2.30) On the other side the fear that
‘the Olympic Games could do more harm than good to the image of Munich’, made the planners of the event, look for solutions that would associate the city with an open- minded cosmospolitanism, which would make its image global and lasting. ‘The
Olympic Games are rounding off Munich’s status as a cosmopolitan city.’(ref2.31) The evolution and world promotion of Munich’s image, as a fashionable formula of the age,was considered a key element, so that Munich would not be listed as a temporary
Olympic City. In the eyes of the organisers, the Olympic city of Munich was seen as an
‘active and interesting partner’, which could lead to the opening up of ‘new markets for tourism, on the international tourist market’.(ref2.32)
In the following paragraphs there will be a description of the main design schemes to be read out of the overall concept of the Munich Olympic City, relying on the following design schemes:
-The conversion of the Olympic site to a ‘miniaturised cosmopolis’ and to a landscape similar to the one of a leisure park.
-The use of architectural and design elements such as the famous Frei Otto ‘tent’, characteristics of anti-monumental style and ‘megastructure’ architecture, inspired by experimental methods in construction technology, new materials and new techniques.(i2.31)
-The creation of an international and commonly understood ‘graphic language’, a project entrusted exclusively to Otl Aitcher, a graphic designer who used simplified
107 forms and a system comprising a limited number of elements, in order to achieve a symbolic design quality.
The Creation of a ‘Miniaturised Cosmopolis’ and ‘Olympics in Green’
The Olympic City of Munich, including the athletic venues, the competition and multiple training facilities and the Olympic Village, was integrated into a single site, in a centrally located area at Oberwiesenfeld. The idea behind the design task was to provide the setting for a cheerful and relaxed atmosphere to develop. It aimed at being as significant to the visitors of the Olympic City as to the citizens of Munich during the period after the Games, keeping its form as a recreation park. The Olympic project was considered to have given new value to northern Munich, by providing the city with a new center of varied community life.(i2.32)
The impression that the Olympic City of Munich wanted to give. could have been characterised as that of a miniaturised and independent world. Landscape and architecture blended into an integral whole, in order to give to the site an autonomous form and identity. The Olympic City as a form of ‘miniaturised’ organism, served as a gathering point for people all over the world, but also as a radiant city, a ‘cosmopolis’ placed in an expanding global network.
The space provided for the hosting of the Munich 1972 Games was a large recreation park. ‘Olympics in Green’ was a title describing the organisers’ intention to combine the concept of an artificial garden with the planning and building of a ‘merry and friendly’ Olympic atmosphere. ‘Molded landscape’ or ‘architectural landscape’ were the terms used to describe the conversion of a flat landing field into a sculpted
108 landscape, into which the various athletic fields and facilities were playfully integrated.
The organisers of the Games aimed at blending landscape and architecture into a whole, in such a way that the stadium and other Olympic installations would be embedded in a landscape, doing justice to the festive occasion and to the temporary accommodation of over 15,000 visitors.The landscape project consisted of artificial hills, a lake, pathways and different groups of plants and trees. The Olympic site with the use of different natural and artificial elements was converted into a terrain which was thoughtfully altered through the creation of hills and hollows, forming an Olympic landscape and well proportioned park.(i2.33)
The main sport facilities were grouped together, in the southern section of the Olympic park, forming a flat central area which was conceived for public use, serving as an assembly or meeting point to the thousands of spectators. The stadium and the sports and swimming hall were located at the central part of the traffic flow, open to the lake and the ‘Rubble Hill’. The northwest part was designed mainly for post Olympic use as a central university sports complex which during the games would serve as a training terrain and as temporary accommodation, providing sufficient facilities for TV, press, radio and other media. In the northeast section of the site, the Olympic Village was formed by a set of heterogenous buildings, able to accommodate 12,000 people. The post-Olympic use of the village was pre-scheduled, converting the athletes’ temporary accommodation into permanent student and rental appartments. The facilities provided, such as the cafeterias and the training and play areas, were all designed in order to serve their double function, the Olympic and the post-Olympic.(ref2.33) The architecture of the village consisted of tall housing blocks, inspired by the mega-structure notion in seventies architecture. The overall design of the Olympic village could also be
109 classified as model of Olympic urbanism based on utopian recreation, provided with an urban world of services, leisure and consumption.(ref2.34) (i2.34)
Streets and paths were laid out according to considerations of a designed circulation network, leading to the venues, to interesting views and to different activity and play areas. The pedestrian paths were designed to be pleasant, as in a park, and not in the character of a parade street. They connected the different sports facilities of the site, offering the oportunity to visitors to approach the venues from different directions, passing through a constantly changing landscape, without giving way to any kind of chaos or damage, during heavy traffic. The most interesting paths, from a design point of view, were the elevated ones running along the ‘Rubble Hill’, offering to the visitor an amazing overall view over the Olympic park, but also the chance to ‘catch a glimpse of the various zones of activity, of life and action by the lake, the show place, the centre of the athletes’ training facilities...’(ref2.35)(i2.35)
The design of the transparent plexiglas tent roof on the top of the sport complex was intended not only to become a ‘landmark’ that would keep alive the memory of the
Olympic City, but as an ‘essential element of architecture’, the example of which would lead to a new technical experiment in the fields of urban construction. The creation of the roof was a result of a brave new anti-monumental architecture, based on the design of ‘megastructures’ in an effort to incorporate everything into a single structure and into a single system or image. During the late sixties a new cult of the ideal urbanisation was introduced, influenced by the forces of automation, communication and construction technology. The scientific and technological revolution of the age demanded a new
110 outlook, a new vision, a kind of ‘technological utopia’ which had been pursued in the name of progress.
Despite the size of the roof covering the three main athletic venues, it is an example of an anti-monumental megastructure. Although it has been considered as the landmark of the Munich 1972 Games, the intentional boldness of its design was opposed to the rules of monumental architecture. The non-geometrical convex and concave curves of the roof became like the shape of the amorphous landscape of the site comprising slopes, meadows, dales and the lake. In that way the design of the roof became incorporated into the Olympic City’s overall design approach. The design of an open air stage and the changing form of landscape were intended to lend visual expression to the meaning of the games as an open minded type of festival, open to all and suited to all. Above all, the design of the stadium, the landscape and the other temporary elements were aimed at creating a psychological atmosphere, in which open minndedness, festivity and humanity were self evident, without any need for declarations.
A big part of the design schedule was for a temporary function. Restaurants, beer gardens, kiosks, rest rooms, space-dividers and other kind of space elements were provided on a temporary basis and were all part of an ephemeral design scheme.
The designers of the Olympic City wanted these prefabricated structures to indicate their temporary function, by taking the form of a sheltered landscape area, with a combination of interior and exterior use of space. They also wanted to give to these structures a lively appearance, fitting them suitably into the landscape of the Olympic
City. The design of the temporary structures was not based on a repeated pattern or
111 formula. Additional plants, walls, bridges and different colours and materials helped to identify the function of each, making also certain that the design would fit harmoniously into the overall conception of an ‘Olympics in green’. For example restaurants were erected at prominent but different points of the park. According to the official report: ‘In the restaurant, a dynamic design was the dominant theme with dining areas on various levels, lively rooms divided by railings, and interesting stairways. The walls and ventilation ducts were painted in pop-art style.... At night the lights transformed the ceilings into broad zones of illumination.’(ref2.36) The elements that made up the Olympic City’s temporary identity made evident the intention towards the creation of an Olympic image which followed fashion and kept in tune with the ‘new’.
Otl Aicher was the designer who was commissioned by the organising committee to create an Olympic image for the 1972 games. The visual design programme was not limited to the production of posters and photographs, but was extended to the spaces within and outside the barriers of the Olympic City, where elements of colour and form served to stress the festive character of the event. The design of the Olympic City’s visual image was aimed at welding the image of the city with that of the Games into a single unit. Information and poster-board complexes, flags and banners were distributed extensively to draw people’s attention all over the town.(2.36)
The selection of the visual and graphic programme’s colour scheme was inspired by the colour tones of Munich’s baroque period. The principal colours were light-blue, light green and silver, and the additional ones were indigo, dark green, white and light orange. The combination of colours formed a much lighter spectrum than usual, having its own appeal.(2.37, 2.38, 2.39)
112
The basis of the visual programme was photographic. There was a tendency towards the creation of a visual language that would be understandable by everybody, interpreted only according to the colour scheme of the Games. Clariry and simplicity, colour alienation and lack of text became the main characteristics of this visual language. For the design of the posters, there was an effort to achieve a kind of crystallisation of the meaning of each picture, turning it into more of a symbol.
The graphic and illustrative signs were based on a system comprising a limited number of elements, offering a very simple appeal and easy to understand meaning. Otl
Aicher’s design technique was based on a square grid, divided in such a way as to represent visually the four directions of movement.
The Games’ graphic identity was something that dominated and distinguished the
Olympic City’s overall visual identity. Even though it represented the overall visual impression of the event, it was more obvious in the areas outside the barriers of the
Olympic park rather than in the Olympic site. The Olympic park, with its elements of architecture and temporary design, reflected clearly its meaning and purpose. On the other hand, the town outside the barriers of the Olympic site, having stayed uninvolved in the staging of the event, was given a decorative role promoting the festive meaning of the event. Groups of slender light-coloured flags were displayed to draw attention to key areas around the town and to public and architecturally attractive spaces. The key design concept was more a suggestion of festivity rather than of heraldry. It was based on the creation of a simple world-wide effect and a global image. The poster and sign programmes were controlled by the desire to popularise effectively and promote widely
113 the image of the Munich Olympic City, as an assembly of people spread all over the world.
The Olympic City of Los Angeles
There are two main characterisations signifying the Olympic Games and the image of the Olympic City of Los Angeles: the commercial Olympic Games and the ephemeral
Olympic City. We are going to examine those characteristics which formed the
Olympic City’s ephemeral identity, encouraged by organisers’ intentions to celebrate the ‘temporary contemporary’, and to give to the Games a wide commercial strength.
The Los Angeles Olympic Games are remembered as a ‘commercial event’ managing to expand the commercial market value of the Games to new limits. They were the first
Games that marked the beginning of economic success. The organisers decided not to spend money on building new stadiums, or an Olympic Village, or to create a single site for the staging of the event. They decided to use existing facilities to which they added a temporary and cohesive ‘Olympic Look’.(i2.40)
The City of Los Angeles
Los Angeles has often been characterised as a different kind of metropolis, a place
‘built for the comfort of people who live there, not for the occasional tourist’ and ‘a
114 very pleasant city to live in and a rather difficult city to visit’. It was commonly believed that for the organisation of such a popular event as the Olympic Games, there should be found a way of helping the city to adjust to the requirements of the world- expanding Olympic invitation. The responsibility of hosting the Games in Los Angeles had been worrying the world critics who believed that the city had ‘too much traffic and too much smog’. Also that there was ‘too much diversity in population for its people to pull together’(ref2.38), emphasising the belief that above all the Games is a cultural event and an opportunity for the host City and its people to create a coherent identity and image.
Los Angeles was and still remains a mixture of cultures and styles and a place always open to innovation.
Los Angeles was a city with no specific centre, which functioned as a multi-centred mosaic of distinct communities. It had often been characterised ‘sixty suburbs in search of a city’. Because of its too sprawling and diverse identity, it became difficult to fit the
Olympic City into a permanent site or to forge it into a single cultural identity, something which had become essential in the building of the previous Olympic Cities.
At the same time the Los Angeles of 1984 had already made it obvious to the rest of the world that it was a city relying on its ephemeral identity. It would always live uniquely in the present and remain a city of beginnings and new opportunities. Hollywood, the land of the ‘American dream’, has remained the apotheosis of the city’s ephemeral identity, providing the city and its people with a picture full of new ideas, fashion and lifestyles. Because of Hollywood, standing as the world’s most famous film industry,
115 the ‘ephemeral’ had already been embedded in the Los Angeles metropolitan psyche.
For the last seventy years, the city of Los Angeles had been expanding and de- centralising, giving ground to the rise of the Hollywood industry.
The Disney-style culture was another example of showing the popularisation and expansion of a lifestyle in which activities had become more territorial, taking place in closed privatized spaces. The development of the Walt Disney theme park was a case signifying the tendency towards the creation of specialised sites, the alienation and classification of activities and the promotion of new forms of conceiving social space inspired by the new, the fashionable, the popular and the ‘temporary contemporary’.
Los Angeles in 1984 had developed into a city where the public areas lacked the diversity, the humanity, the vitality of everyday city-life. Businesses were grouped into business parks, shops into shopping centres, entertainment into leisure parks. Also public transport was almost non-existent. Communication and transportation from the one part of the city to the other depended on the city’s entire street network. According to a critic of the time, ‘Los Angeles owes its greatness to the intervention of the automobile. It is the first metropolis tailored to the existence -to the demands and the possibilities- of the motorcar’. Thanks to this mobility, Los Angeles emerged as a place which allowed cultural diversity out which led to polarisation and classification of people and public activities.(i2.44)
The Staging of the Games
The Olympic City of Los Angeles spread geographically, the planners abandoning the initial concept of staging the entire Games within the City or making the Olympic City an exclusive part of the host City’s territory. The Los Angeles Coliseum, which during
116 the 1932 Games had become the centrepiece of the Games, was renovated and became one of the 23 sporting venues selected for the event. According to the organisers of the
Games: ‘Unlike 1932, the venerable stadium would not be the sole Olympic stadium, and Los Angeles would not be the sole Olympic City’.(ref2.38) One of the main concerns in the staging of the Games was to avoid the mistakes of previous Olympic
Cities. The violent scenes at the Munich ‘72 Games and the endless debt left after the
Games in Montreal ‘76 were two occasions in which the integrity of the Olympic City had been threatened. Therefore the organisers of the 1984 Games wanted to make sure that the city of Los Angeles would provide a secure environment and an event from which the city itself could benefit in an economic level. The sale of television broadcasting rights, corporate sponsorship and tickets sale were the three main sources into which the city tapped, in order not only to cover the expenses for the Games, but also to benefit from them economically.
Most of the construction projects had to do with the refurbishment and upgrading of existing sites and facilities. Apart from a few examples, such as the swim stadium, designed to have a permanent use, the majority of the projects were of a temporary construction often added to an existing one. Scaffolding and bleacher seating were often used at various sites, which together with other rented facilities (tents, fences, toilets, food and sales points) and decorative elements (banners, collonades) aimed at creating a unified visual environment throughout the various sites.
The Exposition Park together with the Los Angeles Coliseum and the Sports Arena, constructed for the purposes of the 1932 Games, became also the central focus of the
1984 Games. Complementary, temporary and permanent, improvements, such as new
117 street lighting and re-paving and the Coliseum renovation were negotiated with decorative elements, creating the atmosphere of a public festival.(i2.42)
The Olympic City of Los Angeles was spread geographically in widely varied settings, within a 100-mile radius of the city centre. The Olympic Village which in previous examples had become an opportunity for new ideas in urbanism and town planning, in the example of Los Angeles made use of existing University sites. Students’ residential halls and other facilities of three different University campuses were converted into
Olympic Villages. The University of Southern California was the largest of the three villages, equipped to handle the needs of the athletes. On the other hand the University of California and Los Angeles developed a ‘Main street’ concept, converting the site into a temporary and imaginary miniaturized town, with restaurants, coffee shops, bars and discos.(i2.43)
The Olympic look
The Olympic City of Los Angeles based its design ideas on the ‘ephemeral principle’ which had already become a characteristic of the entire city’s lifestyle. ‘Festive federalism’ was the phrase that described the organisers’ intention to transform the city into a three weeks festival, trying to steer the Olympic City back to the idea of a festival, where it was believed that it had its roots. The creation of a coherent Olympic
‘look’ was the result of an effort to link the city’s recognised ephemeral culture with the festive qualities and the international spirit of the Games. The temporary transformation of the stadiums, the venues and the public areas in which the Olympic events would be held was based on a fleeting, international, ephemeral, colourful and relatively cheap overall design concept.
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‘Exploit the ephemeral and neutralize nationalistic fervor’, was the message that the
Olympic City of Los Angeles intended to pass. This was an attempt to oppose any large-scale, eponymous and monumental form in architecture, based on the belief that totalitarian graphics and monumental buildings in the recent past had served as political weapons, threatening the integrity of the Modern Olympic Ideal. The organisers believed that expensive design ideas were meant to satisfy nationalistic one-upmanship and designers’ desire for personal recognition, leading to disasters such as happened in
Montreal when for four weeks fun the city took out a forty year mortgage.
‘Invasion of butterflies’ or ‘urban confetti’ were the descriptions given to characterise the program of the host City’s temporary transformation into an Olympic City, with the use of ephemeral colours that gave to residents and visitors a heightened sense of excitement. What the organisers called an ‘Olympic Look’ was the effort made by a team of architects, landscape architects and graphic and industrial designers to transform seventy five diverse sites into a unified visual environment, creating the effect of a happy and festive atmosphere during the Games period. The Olympic Look aimed at making use of the same colours, typography and other graphic elements on everything from decorative banners to tickets. The design department worked in cooperation with the Architecture and Construction Department where the building, the decoration and the design, from entrances, stages, scaffolds and award backdrops to award and commemorative certificates were all part of the same design project.(i2.44)
The Olympic look was based on certain design principles and elements. Addressed to a large live and global audience, the designers aimed at the creation of a ‘look’,
119 recognizable not only to those who would watch the Games in person but also to those who would watch over television. According to the Games official report, ‘Remote viewers saw the decorative elements as a colourful and festive backdrop to the competition. Spectators were exposed to the visual flavor from the moment they entered the individual venues.’(ref2.39) We are going to concentrate on the main concepts, goals and strategies which provided the foundation for the Olympic Look and gave to the Olympic City of Los Angeles a unified live and global image.
In 1982, a document entitled, ‘Design Coordination Guidelines’ was established. It defined the intentions, dreams and goals set for the development of the Olympic City.
The document referred to the key design concepts of the1984 Games, aiming at the creation of an Olympic City where: ‘Everything associated with the Games must have a fresh, festive look that conveys the temporal qualities of the event... a design away from the ego architecture of recent Olympics, towards a more appropriately designed environment... an environment whose architecture celebrates the temporary qualities in fanciful assemblages of colored fabric and exotic graphics.’(ref2.40)
The document, addressed to the designers and architects who would become involved with the creation of the ‘Olympic Look’, put forward a statement of goals for the design program. These goals were:
-The visual unification of the geographically diverse sites, with an identifiable set of elements to a both live and global audience, and the creation of a visual identity common to all venues.
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-The development of design solutions which could become easily adjusted to the temporary nature of the Games, celebrating the event’s temporal qualities.
-The development of a visually distinctive profile, which would reflect the Games’ associated identity of dignity and sheer joy.
The Olympic Look developed several basic design strategies and solutions satisfying the program’s requirements. The most basic of these were:
-The creation of an international graphic system and sign environment, responsive to a world wide live and global audience.
-The development of the colour-palette and its application as a unifying element from site to site. The commonly used colours were magenta, chrome yellow, aqua, light blue, dark blue, vermilion, lavender, pink and violet. The colour selection reflected the
Californian spirit. The statement also suggested that ‘the palette ultimately represented the Mediterranean environment of the original Olympic Games and the Mediterranean- like climate that existed in the Los Angeles area’.(ref2.41)
-The use of temporary and prefabricated structures and lightweight and easy to construct materials, leading to geometric and simplified shapes, adjustable to the different needs of its site. For example the use, mainly in entrances, of scaffold structures with elevated graphics and banners, decorated with stars, spheres, cubes and soft flat decorative panels in various colours.
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-The use in temporary facilities, such as information booths and entrances of a colour and form code system displayed in a manner so that the Olympic City demystifies itself.
-The adjustment of structural and decorative elements, such as fences, tents, banners, gateways and directional signs, into the distinctive Olympic look, coordinating colours, graphics, decoration, materials and structure. One of the examples was the application of the decorative sonotubes which helped to bring alive the Olympic City’s colour- palette. The decorative sonotubes were brightly painted cylindrical columns, sprinkled throughout the competition sites. They ranged in size, used either for decoration or as the supports for lintels or pediments.(i2.45)
Los Angeles was the first post-industrial city to host the Games. Unlike previous
Olympiads, the Olympic City of Los Angeles did not take into account the needs of the city itself, reconsidering its social and urban structure. There is hardly a focus on the city’s historical, cultural or natural characteristics, something that was justified, by emphasising the international identity and its tendency towards the ‘new’. Los Angeles emphasised the temporary and universal nature of the Olympic Games, as a festival, a temporary meeting point and a world event. It succeeded at creating an Olympic environment and an image where the city’s intentions to host just a temporary event became clear. The Olympic City visually projected the ‘new’, the ‘ephemeral’, the
‘global’, without being concerned with matters such as the completion of costly and large in scale design tasks, the financing of the Games, or the buildings’ post Olympic use.
122 The look of ‘festive federalism’ included, cheap, easy to use, prefabricated, mobile and decorative function elements.(i2.46) The temporary structures intermixed with other design elements formed a modern environment that enhanced the communal feelings associated with great events and markets throughout the world. The Olympic look did not limit it s applications to the local, as a preparation of the City for a street party. For the first time the Olympic design had a global application, being extended world wide.
Driven by the means of popular culture and commercialisation, the look of ‘festive federalism’ was applied to publications and signs, to world magazines and print graphic projects, and also to commercial products, television graphics and advertising.
Los Angeles, a city with such a tradition in film making, laid great emphasis on transforming the Olympic space into a stage, suitable for hundreds of hours of television coverage, for the benefit of a global audience. Unlike other Olympic cities, where the main interest was the preparation for a live celebration, usually local in character, the Olympic City of Los Angeles decided to prepare an image satisfying the rules for a global celebration. The Olympic venues were designed in order to fit the requirements of television coverage. Bright colours, simple forms, a frame-sharp and colour-rich refurbishment were all ideas that contributed to the creation of a stage design similar to the concept of a film making studio.
The Olympic City of Los Angeles took also on commercial dimensions, based on the popularisation of the American global culture, encouraged by the means of global communication, with the use of street and television advertising. The Olympic City often gave the impression of a Disney theme park, since the Olympic look had been
123 commercially spread, applied in areas such as the design for the packaging of everyday consumer products (drinks, food, clothes, toys and stationery)(i2.48)
We should remind ourselves that a considerable part of the Olympic park, the central
Olympic site, was dedicated to eponymous commercial products. There were five main sponsors which covered the expenses for the construction of the park and in return they requested facilities in it. For example ‘American Telephone and Telegraph’ constructed a prefabricated calling center. ‘American Express’ built a re-decorated drive-in bank and a currency exchange corner. In addition, a few companies decided to fund the building of permanent or temporary facilities and in return their products or services were advertised and promoted for the duration of the Games. For example the swim stadium, situated in the campus of the university of Southern California, was built by a grant received from ‘McDonald’s’, a company which was one of the Games’ top sponsors.(i2.47)
The Los Angeles Olympic City did not create a site. It created more a system where ideas related to the design, image, marketing and financing of the Games were all integrated into one main idea, leading to an ephemeral and self-financed Olympics.
After the end of the Games the city of Los Angeles did not have to think of what it should do with the remaining buildings or how it should pay off the cost of the Games.
There is even a statement claiming that the Games fulfilled a social purpose for the citizens of Los Angeles. It claimed: ‘The people felt like they lived in an integrated region. They don’t live in Huntington Park, or Downey, or Tarzana, or Santa Monica.
The walls that they built, both literally and figuratively, and the walls that their own cities have built politically, are not as real as they imagined.’ The statement continues to
124 express the view that: ‘We don’t know how long it will last but it will give people a broadened view of this region...A result of that can be a greater sense of’ ‘We are one people’, and at least apply it to a region-if not a world’(ref2.42)
CHAPTER III
A NEED FOR SYMBIOSIS BETWEEN VISION AND REALITY
- THE RE-CREATION OF THE MODERN OLYMPIC CITY-
The meaning of Symbiosis and the role of the Modern Olympic City
The term ‘Symbiosis’ is derived from the Greek word - συµ-βιωσις - which means
‘living together’ and which defines the close accociation between two interdependent things. In our case those are the city as an Olympic vision and as an existing reality. The word ‘Symbiosis’ seems suitable to describe the role that today’s Olympic City should play, in order to overcome the contradictions that often bring confusion to its meaning.
Is the Olympic City a representation of a vision or of a reality, a city or an image, a global or a local environment, an inherited ideal or a imaginary form, a fertile or sterile utopia, a glorification of a past or a present commodity?
Symbiosis and Eclecticism
Previously we referred to Eclecticism as a philosophical term that identified with
Coubertin’s style of thought, and as a theory that seems to have influenced Coubertin’s thoughts in matters such as the notion of Modern Olympia and the contribution of the
125 Arts, in the philosophical projection of Olympism. Coubertin’s considerations of
‘Ruskin’s theories on Beauty’, as an option for the Olympic Art and the development of his ideas on the ‘Beautification of the Games’ led to being characterised as an eclectic and utopian thinker.
Symbiosis and Eclecticism are two terms opposed to each other. Each one is a style of thought with different perspectives and a different view of reality. However the reason for examining this opposition is not to reject eclecticism. It is only when eclecticism passes over to action, that it could lead to the creation of ‘sterile utopias’ ‘orientated towards objects which do not exist in an actual situation’.(ref1.76) Following the method of eclecticism, based on a combination of invisible historical ideas combined with modern forms, we could be led to a mode of expression often characterised by abstraction, irony, conceptual twists and gaps.
Coubertin’s conception of eclecticism in relation to his thoughts on Olympism has already been examined by many contemporary theorists. Bernd Wirkus believes that
‘Eclecticism was the source of energy of Coubertin’s thinking, combining things which normally do not fit together’(ref1.77) He also claimed that Coubertin’s Olympism is a result of an optimistic look of life ‘where negative elements are neglected or totally excluded’. (ref1.78)
Eclecticism as a theory that ‘springs from the will to understand things as a whole’(ref1.79), favoured Coubertin’s vision to revive the Olympic Ideal and give to the ancient model of Olympia a modern form. Coubertin wished to ‘restore the
Olympiad to its primal Beauty’. At the same time he called the Olympic festival ‘a
126 spring of mankind’, ‘a festival of universal youth…celebrated by each succeeding generation (ref1.80), showing his tendency to a mobility in his action. At this point we should remind ourselves of something that has already been mentioned in the first chapter. Coubertin claimed that with the Games he wished to revive ‘not so much the form but the very principle of the millenian institution’.(ref1.81) He wished to restore the ‘powerful buttresses – the intellectual, moral and religious buttress’ that had supported mankind in the past, and combine it with the ‘modern world added new forces of technical improvements and democratic internationalism’(ref1.82).
With the start of the Modern Olympic Games, Olympism moved from theory to action, gaining a certain form and shape. What seemed particularly interesting is the fact that
Coubertin seemed to have followed eclecticism, also as solution to the problem of which shape and form the host environment should take. This becomes obvious after having examined the meaning of ‘Modern Olympia’ as a territorial translation of
Coubertin’s vision for Modern Olympia standing more as a ‘collage’ of images from present and past, rather than a conceptual framework for the future host city.
In theory it is possible and even poetic to bring reality close to vision, as a result of combining eclectic choice and utopian thinking. However in practice, because the synthesis between vision and reality becomes impossible, with ‘symbiosis’ we are aiming at achieving the closest association between the two. What becomes certain is that the Olympic City cannot be only an image, as in the vision of Modern Olympia, especially after the dimensions that it has taken during the last four decades. It is a concept which has become associated with a particular form of reality. For example when we examine the Olympic City it is not enough to know about the geographical
127 conditions of the space provided by the host city in order to build our new ‘Modern
Olympia’. In order to achieve a symbiosis we have to become familiar with the ‘host’, examine the city’s historic, social, political and economic background and associate our
‘Modern Olympia’ with it.
Olympic Cities and ‘Utopias’
As we saw during the first chapter, Coubertin, the creator of Modern Olympism, suggested a spatial pattern-Modern Olympia- based mainly on utopian thinking. In an attempt to ennoble, project and give form to his vision, he invited different countries to translate, in their own way, his perception of ‘Modern Olympia’, the reality of which is today’s Olympic City. Coubertin’s attempt to create an environmnt based on imaginary utopian thinking could possibly explain why the notion of ‘Olympic city’ is in a sense
‘flexible’. It is a type of reality in which the boundary between imagination and fact is never stable. It is a visual expression ranging from an idealised form of local reality to an imaginary reality in the midst of a general celebration of universalism.
Going beyond the vision and the conception of the Olympic City into the actual reality and creation of the host environment, we can distinguish many different concepts flowing between different perceptions of the ideal (utopias) and different ways of handling the reality of social and urban space. It is impossible to create a system which would help us to set the criteria for an ideal Olympic City, for the simple reason that there are too many versions of utopia and too many models of social and urban reality.
128 The Olympic City is clearly a utopian vision, but also a reality with an undefined visual and formal identity.
The ambivalent relation between an Olympic City and a Utopia
Utopias are sites without any actual locality, derived from the Greek ‘ου-τοπία’ which means no-place and often confused with the word ‘ευ-τοπία’ which means good place.
However utopias become identified to places perceived as perfect, by providing reality with a source of hope, a guide to action and an ideal to be emulated, something similar to what Coubertin had envisaged the Olympic Ideal to stand for.
Foucault’s definition of ‘utopias’ is that they are ‘emplacements having no real place.
They are emplacements that maintain a general relation of direct or inverse analogy with the real space of society. They are society perfected or the reverse of society, but in any case these utopias are spaces that are fundamentally and essentially unreal’.(ref3.1)
Doxiadis gives a similar definition, by setting as a criterion for recognising whether a place is utopian the degree of its possible realisation.(ref3.2)
Concerning the mixed role of the Olympic city and the flexible role of utopias, it seems that the synthesis of these two meanings can lead to two different possibilities: the creation of an Olympic city based on the utopian framework of an ideal city and the creation of an Olympic city based on the utopian framework of an imaginary city.
The main differences between these are as follows:
129 The Olympic city, in the role of an imaginary city, emphasises the organisation of a territorial space, based on illusion, with the use of image as its main tool. Its role is to be idyllic, seducing, different and original, while its function is usually temporary. On the other hand, the Olympic city which follows the concept of an ideal city, is not one of ‘illusion but of compensation’, based on an actual plan. Its role is to be argumental and oppositional to the existing environment, while it serves as a remedy to contradict and change a certain situation.
Olympic Cities as Ideal Cities
Doxiadis considers a literary version of utopias, based on dreams for a better and happier life and usually depending on subjective criteria and solutions. He refers to the
‘Ideal Cities’ as examples challenging enough for a man to ‘develop and crystallise his thoughts about his ideal’. Therefore he considers the ‘ideal cities’ as representations, in a practical way, of what man had preconceived as a suitable human settlement.
Doxiadis, even though he admits that ‘a very small percentage of cities built by man have followed a plan which was preconceived as an ideal’(ref3.3) he recognises the value of utopias as ways directing men to the ‘realisation of his dreams and conceptions which always lagged behind the real issues confronting him’.(ref3.4)
Cosmopolis
Doxiadis refers to the notion of Cosmopolis as a special type of ideal city, in which there is always a ‘dream of a unified world covering the whole earth’(ref3.5), which reminds us one of Olympism’s fundamental principles: ‘to contribute to building a
130 peaceful and better world, by educating youth through sport practised without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of frienship, solidarity and fair play’.(ref3.6)
If the idea of organising of the Games in different places had not been introduced by
Coubertin, we could certainly suggest that ‘cosmopolis’ would be the type of utopia fitting into the needs of Olympism. Cosmopolis, derived from the word -κόσµος- which means world, is a concept used in many cases, by many civilisations especially during different historic conquests and great empires. As Doxiadis points out ‘In the Christian
West the idea of a universal state appealed as much as the idea of paradise did’.(ref3.7)
Religious theories and visions are possibly the closest examples where we often find
‘cosmopolis’ appealing to such notions as ‘paradise’. In the modern world the notion of cosmopolis becomes often a challenge for the creation of an imagined global community with a broader cross cultural tolerance. It is usually addressed to multicultural cities (eg. many of the American megalopoles), where social and cultural polarisation often become reasons for scenes of social anarchy and violence.
The Olympic city’s ‘identity of sameness’ and the Olympic symbols, which we examined during the second chapter, are definitely elements representing the notion of cosmopolis. The Olympic symbol, the five interlaced rings, ‘represents the union of the five continents and the meeting of athletes from throughout the world’.(ref3.8)
Furthermore the form of the Olympic stadium, excluding its particular architecture and decorative characteristics, is another example where ‘cosmopolis’ becomes an actual plan, because it accommodates spectators and athletes from all around the world, without distinction.
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A Forced Utopia
‘Utopia, as the word implies, deprives us of the obligation to implement it or to make it work’.(ref3.9) A forced realisation of ‘utopia’ is possible, for example, if a dictatorship is imposed as in the case of the Berlin 1936 Olympic City. The conversion of Berlin into a monumantal city and to the ideal city of ‘parade and spectacle’ was the result of a forced form of utopia, with the tendency to ‘aestheticise’ social and political thought, in order to create a society based on ‘order and discipline’.
Technological utopias
Oscar Wilde wrote that ‘a map that does not include utopia is not worth glancing at...Progress is the realisation of Utopias’.(ref3.10) During the decades of the sixties and seventies there was not only a devotion to scientific and technologocal progress, but also to a form of utopia inspired by the world of computers, automation, miniaturisation and a new outlook condensed into a single image or system.
Many of ‘Utopias’ of that time were reactions to the expanding size of the cities, trying to suggest ideas such as the compression of human activities into a single system, influenced by space-shrinking techniques and miniaturisation of life. The architecture of megastructures, embracing high technology and experimental building techniques, represented ‘on the outside a coherent and contained image with no anarchic ragged edges, allowing at the same time the maximum personal variety within’(ref3.11)
132 The concept of a technological utopia was the one used for the building of the Munich
1972 Olympic City. The use of a single site situated at the centre of the city, which was the composition of a vast landscape with the creation of megastructure, can be certainly identified with the concept of a 70’s technological utopia which aimed at ‘compressing all human life into huge structures containing hundreds of thousands of people’(ref3.12), creating spaces where people ‘could walk in just a few minutes’and where they could receive ‘the benefits of town and country, not rolled into one, but existing side by side as polar opposites’.(ref3.13)
The concept of a ‘technological utopia’, which the Munich Olympics borrowed, aimed at putting forward an ideal of human life that uses high technologyin a sensible way, a shared manner and as a part of a coherent system which brings people closer to each other, closer to nature and closer to progress. It seems interesting that many of the designers of technological utopias were opposed to aspects of mass production industry and economy, while they were also concerned with subjects related to the society and the environment.
The Olympic City and the Imaginary City
Gaston Bachelard in his doctrine ’On Poetic Imagination and Reverie’ he gives general definition of the word ‘imaginary’. He refers to the polarity between imagination and reason claiming that ‘image and concepts are formed at opposite poles of mental activity:imagination and reason...The image cannot give matter to the concept and the concept by giving stability to the image, would stifle its existence’(ref3.14) For
133 Bachelard the realm of imagination is an invitation to a voyage where everything immanent takes on an often coarse, artificial, or an illusory and ephemeral transcendence. Imagination is more the faculty of ‘deforming’ and ‘changing’, rather than ‘forming images’, by freeing ourselves from the immediate images. However he finds that ‘the fundamental word corresponding to imagination is not image, but imaginary’ which means unreal or illusory.(ref3.15)
From Bachelard’s general definition of ‘imaginary’ we should move to Paul Patton’s collection of essays on ‘imaginary cities’ in order to be able to create a link between the
Olympic City and the ‘imaginary city’. According to Patton, imaginary cities are results of the contemporary city’s postmodern condition and conversion to an ‘emporium of styles from which the individual might choose an identity’.(ref3.16) The ‘imaginary city’ is based on the thought that urban life has become ‘more superficial, more image and consumption based, under the conditions of late capitalism’, appealing to notions of subjective individualism.(ref3.17)
The ‘imaginary city’ is not a ‘utopia’ despite its illusory form. It is a description which represents a view of our urban life where the two opposed poles of ‘reason’ and
‘imagination’, that Bachelard talked about, find a common ground’. Patton, borrowing
Harvey’s thoughts, gives a description of the city as a ‘soft’ place, meaning a space of unrivalled freedom and open-ended possibility. He identifies the imaginary city to ‘a theatrical space’, ‘a series of stages upon which individuals could work their own distinctive magic while performing a multiplicity of roles’.(ref3.18) Based on the post- modern belief in cultural pluralism and opening to a range of materials, revitalising
134 ideas, design approches and techniques, the imaginary city turns the city into an
‘emporium of styles’ and into an ‘image industry’.
The increased rhythms of production and consumption have led to a much more rapid circulation of money, commodities and every day life images. The fashion industry has been given an increased importance, trying to ‘promote and sell’ products or services, based on a ‘deformed or changed imagery’. Re-creational events and public festivals open opportunities to ‘acting’, ‘exhibiting the imaginary’, ‘puting on a show of themselves’, which reminds us of the role that the Olympic City has often had to play.
The Olympic City of Los Angeles is possibly the most significant example, taking on a model of an ‘imaginary city’ with an ‘allusion to consumerism as a style of life’.(ref3.19) The venues used for various athletic facilities were temporary, giving the impression of ‘theatrical stages’and ‘imaginary spaces’ dissociated from the surrounding environment. The creation of a coherent look, applied from the interior of spaces to the design of the packaging of everyday consumer products, aspired to being a world changed ‘imagery’ where all services and activities had been ‘aesthetisised’, like in the ‘Disneyland’s magic unreality’.
The Olympic City of Atlanta is another and most recent example identified with the model of an imaginary city. The Olympic City of the 1996 Games was transformed into an entertainment industry and into a showroom for fashionable imagery. It turned whole buildings into a circus of changing events and into an image controlled by the use of modern graphic systems. Large pavilions and prefabricated tents with wall projections and giant television screens were used as showrooms of information technology, where
135 visitors could watch the different Olympic events. For the building of both, the
AT&Global Communications Centre and the ‘Swatch Pavillion’ used new materials and techniques which aimed at seducing visitors visually. The interior of the
AT&Global Communications Centre was a ‘giant theatre’ with different event spaces and big size television screens.The ‘Swatch Pavillion’ was built of polycarbonate sheets, filled with different sights and sounds, while its front was used for image projections.
The imaginary city’s time is linear. Therefore it constantly seeks to create a new image for itself and re-fashion its means of representation. An Olympic City when it tries to become ‘imaginary’ has to create something visually new and original in order to send the previous one into oblivion. It is an artificial form of city and usually not the real impression of it. It represents a temporary dream, at the end of which everything returns to its ordinary rhythms.
This form of Olympic city often becomes a product of competitive commercialisation and globalisation aimed at breaking the records of progress, in communications, information and building technology. Its success depends on the number of tickets sold, the size of its local and global audience. Therefore it uses ‘imagery’ as a tool, trying to invent strategies and develop ideas that will sell the evnt more effectively. The Olympic city becomes often involved in a process of continuous transformation, turning into a display of advanced technology and strong economy. Since the time that enormous sums of money were poured into the Olympics, each Olympic city has tried to appeal more ‘idyllic’ than previous ones and has therefore become more ‘expensive’ and more
136 ‘utopian’. Experimental ideas, engineering feats, new buillding techniques and impressive graphic effects have come to dominate the Olympic city’s imagery.
The evaluation of the ‘Utopian’ Olympic City
Should the Olympic City identify with the notion of an ‘Ideal City’ or a
‘Cosmopolis’or should it become represented as an ‘Imaginary City’?
The ideal Olympic City should be inspired by a vision of the ideal city and the spontaneity of the imaginary city, but in order to have any practical value, it requires some grounding in social reality. The ‘imaginary’ Olympic city starts with a premise that is not realistic. The city is a reality that concentates all its attention on a seventeen day long programme. Linked with the forces of marketing and globalisation, it increases its value depending on the material success and popularity of the games. It could gradually lead us to a dangerous stage when belief in a great ideal, such as the Olympic
Ideal, could mean the limitation of man’s ability to make long-term plans and aspire to a higher quality of life.
On the other hand the Olympic city should not be restricted by single-minded ideas of the host city’s requirements, without the opportunity of the Games becoming a global celebration, embracing dreams for a peaceful and unified world. It is as opportunity for the city to realize its international dimensions and to become the centre of an international network, with its own idiosyncratic behavior. Here every man carrying his
137 own personal, social, national and ethnic identity, will have the chance to intermingle, interconnect and prove his differentiation on a universal scale.
The danger however of an Olympic city based on the model of an ideal city, is that it uses all its energy to identify the ideal of Olympism with the ideals of a city. Even though it succeeds breaking the barriers between the Olympic city and the city’s wider territory, it creates new barriers between the city and the rest of the world, ignoring
Olympism’s universal principles and cosmic values.
The Olympic city, even though it is impossible to become a 20 th century incarnation of
Ancient Olympia, should use its ‘Olympic’ identity in order to expand its perimeter globally, being at the centre of a macrocosmos. However ‘framing’ the Olympic City’s possibilities within the realm of a ‘theme park’or a ‘fantasy world’, gives way to solutions with an illusionary meaning and temporary value.
138 Barcelona 1992
After the examples of the Games in sixties, seventies, and eighties, in which the
Olympic City was either concentrated into a single site, or had been turned into a commercial or cultural Olympic Utopia, Barcelona decided on planning of ‘Olympic
City’ that would serve as a catalyst for the city’s urban renewal. The selection of
Barcelona as a host city for the 1992 Games was seen as a great opportunity to continue and to empower the process of urban transformation that had started in the city in the early eighties. The planning of the city’s reconstruction was not an easy task. After thirty-five years of the Franco regime, the city was still recovering from its social ills, facing the consequences of an urban anarchy. The admission of Spain to the EEC and the decision to put forward Barcelona as a candidate for the 1992 Games gave to the people reasons to set goals in order to meet the requirements of the approaching task.
The planning of the ‘City’s Rebirth’ started in 1980 and continued even after the completion of the Games.
The Mayor Pascal Maragal, the Mminister of Culture, the architect Oriel Bohigas and a range of local and international planners, architects and designers from several fields became the main protagonists in the establishment of an ambitious strategic masterplan.
Daniel Mackay, one of the leading personalities in the ‘City’s rebirth’ project, claimed that ‘Barcelona is an ideal city for architects...a city very easy to read’.(ref3.20) The city’s geographical position (open to the sea), its morphological characteristics, the expansion of its boundaries and the synthesis of its different historical portraits were the main subjects that Mackay pointed out to define his ideas.
139 David Mackay claimed that: ‘Without the Olympics it would have taken thirty years,
People would have got bored. Design standards would have fallen. There would have been speculation.’ He continues: ‘You need a dream so that people become suddenly conscious of their city, and proud and everything fits together’.(ref3.21) Barcelona’s visionary reform went much further than the provision of Olympic facilities. It is the only example in the Modern Olympic history in which the Olympic dream came so close to reality, also a rare case in the history of town planning in which the vision for the formation of an ‘ideal city’ became active and actively responsive to the problems and the needs of the city, within a period of ten years.
The city was not re-invented or re-placed. It was re-formed and re-generated. Those involved with the city’s planning aimed at bringing back to life the city’s geographical boundaries -the sea coast and the hill- and linking them with the rest of the urban network.
The Olympic City of Barcelona is the first in the history of Modern Olympism which was not afraid to construct plans based on an ‘ideal city’ concept, proving that the city can represent something much more than the portrait of a temporary ‘utopia’. The
Olympic City of Barcelona managed to differ by becoming a natural part of the city and not a framed and illusionary space. The ephemeral nature of the event was conceived as a means of regenerating the city and a celebration of what was actually achieved during the Olympiad.
The city’s strategic planning was not limited to and selective of the areas that would be used for Olympic purposes. Neither it was interested in following an homogenous and
140 boundary-free planning. On the contrary it was expanded into a multiple and heterogenous planning process based on local needs. Instead of concentrating all
Olympic projects into a single site, the Olympic City exploited existing local resources to meet the needs of both the Games and the city. Therefore the Olympic City was not based on the creation of a hypothetical city design scheme and built on an autonomous environment from the rest of the city. The Olympic City focused at in a general and specific level, on the restoration and preservation of its existing local identity and on applying its programme into city-wide and small scale projects.
The Olympic City of Barcelona was a city-wide vision that became a reality, based on the recognition and realisation of its dreams and ideals. It developed the idea of the
‘citizen’s city’, becoming interested in the general and everyday affairs of the citizens and in the re-creation of the community based spaces , with plans that aimed at bringing public spaces closer to their users. Understanding the form and the character of the city was one of the organisers key aims, whereas functionalism was considered hostile to urban planning. With respect to the structure of the historic neighbourhood and with appreciation of the formal and theatrical characteristics of old public spaces and traditional urban morphologies, there was an effort made leading to local reorganisation and monumentality. This effort aimed for each neighbourhood to keep clear its temporal characteristics and its spatial boundaries as a separate form of community, by also becoming part of an environment favouring antithetical co-existence and not the creation of anti-urban ghettos. The critic, Peter Buchanan, referring to this kind of co- existence, talked about ‘a city essentialy homogenised despite the discombobulated heterogeneity of the bits....the different historic zones of the city retain clear
141 identities.Within them, buildings, open spaces and street furniture of different historic periods co-exist in happy harmony’.(ref3.22)
Almost ten years after the 1992 Olympic Games Barcelona still carries the title of an exceptional Olympic City. The games were the main motive for the establishment of a strategic masterplan leading to the entire transformation of the city’s physical and social fabrics. The recreation of public spaces, the opening to the sea, the refurbishment of the city’s street and communication network were projects that recognised the citizens’ environmental and social needs. The Olympic City of Barcelona suggested solutions that would lead to long term improvements and to an overall benefit for the population.
The designers of the Olympic City recognised the different, and often conflicting in style, character of the city. Therefore, instead of borrowing parts of the city and converting them into a homogenous space, they decided on the separation not only of the sites, but also of the tasks given to different architects and designers. The whole plan involving the ‘city’s rebirth’ had started before the selection of Barcelona’s candidature and it continued even after the termination of the Games. However, the
Games stood as the key to the overall effort and for this reason the city’s rebirth is associated with the Olympic City and when the stages of its rebirth are identified, the
‘pre-Olympic’, the ‘Olympic’ and the ‘post-Olympic’ period are the terms used.
The main stages involving the ‘city’s rebirth’ and the development of the Olympic City maybe summed up as follows: (ref3.23)
142 The first stage was between 1979-1983, a period which involved the analysis of the city’s social and urban structure, looking at different visions and proposed ideas. In this stage selective and small scale operations took place.
The second stage took place between 1983-1986, and consisted of the preparations for the city’s candidature, exploiting existing urban resources which could meet the needs of the Games. The projects involved both larger operations where regional reconstruction was taking place and city-wide operations where ‘projects in the big city’ and ‘big projects for the city’ had to be divided and integrated into the overall plan.
The third stage was between 1987-1992 and involved the plans for the organisation of the 1992 Games and the Barcelona- Olympic City scheme. During these years the concept of ‘Areas of New Centrality-ANC’ was developed, giving solutions to the planning of the Olympic City. The ANC programme aimed at the development of new poles of urban centrality within the existing urban zone, in order to control the density and further expansion of the city’s centre and create a new relation between the centre and the city’s outskirts.
The fourth stage is the post-Olympic dimension of the city. In this case, Barcelona has opposed the previous examples of Olympic Cities in which the termination of the
Games also signified the end of the city’s planning action. The Olympic City of
Barcelona was not an example of Olympic Utopia, designed exclusively for the duration of the Olympic event. It was a result of an effort inspired by visions and realised through programs and plans.
143 The projects
The planning and design of the Olympic City were not conceived as a project autonomous and homogenous in style. The design task working from the particular to the general was separated in many individual and implementable projects, the combination of which became integrated into the city’s overall reformation plan. There are four prime Olympic sites in which the Olympic project was located. These sites were deliberately chosen as clear strategic positions for the resolution of large scale urban problems leading to an osmotic expansion, outwards and opening the way to the outlying districts. These four sites form a cross within the city’s boundaries, indicating the four extensions ‘to the city’s process of reconstruction and modernisation’(ref3.24)
These four sites are:
The Montjuic Hill, the Diagonal Area, the Vall d’Hebron and finally the Parc de Mar.
The leading task was the rebuilding of the Montjuic stadium and the opening up of the site - Montjuic Hill- to the city, and the regeneration of the city’s sea front in Parc de
Mar.
Montjuic was the largest park in the city left unfinished ever since the Barcelona
International Exhibition, held in 1929. It became the main Olympic site, divided into sub-areas accommodating only a few modern buildings.(i3.3, 3.4) Most of the interventions in the overall area consisted of refurbishment and conservation. In the past the area had contained the most cultural and leisure facilities (museums, galleries, gardens, restaurants, the fair ground, the Teatre Grec and the Poble Espanyol), built
144 with the opportunity of various national and international exhibitions that had taken place. With the use of the area as one of the main Olympic sites, it was decided to give life and keep the area’s aesthetic elements, by working on the restoration of the old installations. The facades of the trade fair buildings were reconstructed, escalators were installed and the gardens were replanted. The large garden where the pavillions of the
Exhibition of 1929 were built was used for the construction of the Olympic Ring, the
Palau Sant Jordi, the INEFC and the Parc del Migdia.
The Diagonal area is located in the highest part of the city and close to the main motorways.(i3.5) Before the Games, it was an area isolated and disconnected from the city centre. The new plans involved the transformation of the area into a new ‘gateway’ to the city, opening up new lines of communication and reorganising a number of empty sites. During the Games, the Diagonal area did not function as a single site. Each venue had its own services and facilities. The area included the FC Barcelona stadium and the
RCD Espanyol stadium for football competitions, the Real Club de Polo for equestrian competitions and the Palau Blaugrana, for judo and tae kwondo.
The Val d’Hebron area, lying between the city and the hills in the north of the city, was an isolated area transformed into an important leisure and sports facility zone. The
Olympic site accommodated the new Velodrom, the Archery field, the Tennis de la Vall d’Hebron. The design and the definiton of this new urban site is renowed for its good adaptation to the lie of the land, in harmony with the built-up surrounding areas.
145 The Parc de Mar Area
The Parc de Mar Area is possibly the most significant example of the city’s new- centralisation, by opening up Barcelona to the sea and offering to a neighbourhood which used to be a concentration of idle factories and dilapidated warehouses a new character of centrality. The Parc de Mar Area accommodated the Olympic Village and venues for the competiton of three main sports: yachting, badminton and table tennis.
The whole area was regenerated with the building of new housing, offices, spacious commercial areas and shops The urban pattern, even though it underwent many morphological changes, tried to preserve the remains of a grid (streets, squares, blocks) designed by Ildefons Cerda, an engineer of the 19 th century who had ‘mellowed the formal concept of urban life with public gardens, decades before garden city architects’.(ref3.25) (i3.6, 3.7, 3.8) The architecture of the Olympic village was based on flexible planning, according to a series of successive project decisions. The design of two skyscrapers used for offices contrasted the architecture of the rest of the site, giving the impression of having a symbolic significance as portals of the Olympic site.
The area of Poblenou(i,3.9) where the Olympic Village was sited, used to be a maze of abandoned streets, empty warehouses and alongside the coast beaches which had been turned into dumping grounds for household rubbish and industrial waste.
The whole area had been cut off and isolated, because of two railway lines which had created a physical barrier between the coastline and the rest of the city.
The idea of opening up the city to the sea and regenerating a geographically privileged site, which had been in decline for many years, was entrusted to a team of architects and
146 planners led by Oriol Bohigas, the person who was most involved with the organisation of the Olympic city. The designers aimed at the creation of an open dialogue between the host city and the Olympic village, reconciling the objectives for the site during and after the Olympic Games. In contrast to previous examples of Olympic Village architecture, they did not want to turn the area of Poblenou into a site for urban experimentation, or into any ‘anomalous phenomenon, which was an outlying housing estate, or an anti-urban ghetto’.(ref3.26) (i3.10)At the same time any ideas involving
‘theatrical or picturesque imitation of the old nucleus of the city and its established neighbourhoods’ were far removed from the designers’ plans.
The decision to convert the area of Poblenou into one of the main Olympic sites led to the removal of the railway tracks, the rehabilitation of the beaches and the development of an underground link with the rest of the city, without causing a new barrier. In this way 18ha of beaches along a 4km front and 50ha of parks were free for re-creation.
The building of the new marina provided many public spaces together with a network of green spaces, parks and pedestrian links.
The image of the Olympic City
The Olympic city’s ephemeral image coincided with the re-birth of the city of
Barcelona. The celebration of the Olympic festival was identified with the celebration of the city’s regeneration, when various sectors of Catalan society, under the new democratic regime, had to present their ‘re-newed’ portrait. In this case different design elements became fundamental to the construction of a new international image,
147 projecting the success of the Olympic City into the fields of social life, technology, finance and culture. ‘The Games have come to Spain, to a new, renovated country with a vocation for modernity, which still maintains its idiosyncratic habits.’(ref3.27)
The Olympic City’s ‘Image and Communication’ campaign aimed at projecting
Barcelona’s reputation as a ‘cradle of art’, a ‘centre of creativity and imagination’.
Art, Design and Architecture were characterised as ‘the cornerstones of the 25 th
Olympiad’ considering the creative act as a differential factor. Unlike the previous
Olympic Cities where design was either applied for commercial purposes, or was used as a means of experimentation with certain design techniques or styles, design elements of Barcelona served as the city’s ‘urban facelift’, promoting what was achieved in the domains of the city’s design and architecture.
The design project had a broad promotional role, aimed at linking the ‘local’ with the
‘festive’ and the ‘popular’. Elements of the city’s local ‘fiesta’ image reconciled with those required for the celebration of the Olympic festival. Barcelona managed to avoid making the Games’ commercial objectives too obvious and direct. From the design of the official mascot and emblems to the overall application of the city’s Olympic image ,
Barcelona’s organisers projected a more realistic attitude to the Games’ promotional and commercial image. They created a visual language appropriate to the city’s local identity.
The design of Barcelona’s ‘logotype’ and ‘official mascot’ were considered the two key features which managed to combine well two main things: the local identity and a global promotion.
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The design of the logotype borrowed the particular colours and the aesthetic lines found in Barcelona’s cultural nature, similar to a Miro-like vision. The use of red and yellow was inspired by the colours found in the Spanish and Catalan flags, but also by the represented by ‘light, sun.. and fire, blood,...’(ref3.28) The use of blue evoked the sea and served to ‘offset the warm colours with which it was combined’(ref3.29)
Javier Mariscal’s design for the official mascot of the Games , ‘Cobi’, was a unique example which broke the static identity of the ‘Olympic symbol’ and matched the city’s individual character. Cobi is a Catalan dog, with human behaviour and his own personality. The cubist design of Mariscal warmed the public with its ‘avant garde’ charm.
The examination of the Barcelona Olympic City, according to the literal concept of
Doxiadi’s ‘Entopia’
The meaning of Doxiadi’s ‘Entopia’
In Doxiadi’s doctrine ‘Between Dystopia and Utopia’ the notion of Entopia is conveyed in the description of a city which fulfils the dreams of man for an ideal city with real dimensions and forms. ‘Entopia has to be conceived and built with reason and dream. Reason cannot be introduced into our frame unless we give it dimensions, unless we proceed with measurements of all dimensions in space and time.’ Doxiadis conceived the notion of ‘Entopia’, first by taking under consideration the multiple problems of the megalopolis, and second by following the aspirations and the dreams of
149 ‘Utopia’. Doxiadis refers to the example of any city that has grown in an unreasonable way and presents the image of a ‘Dystopia’.
Unlike other often presented notions of ‘Ideal cities’, Entopia is not an absolute physical and material expression of Utopia (the conception of the ideal city). For
Doxiadis, ‘Entopia’ is not an escape from reality. It accepts ‘the very big city as a concept because it is already a fact’ and ‘as long as we do not recognise it, we will not achieve anything’.(ref 3.30)
Doxiadi’s ‘Entopia’ is clearly expressed as a ‘Symbiosis’ between the reality of
Dystopia and the dream of Utopia, following the concept line:
-1Towards Dystopia, the realisation that we live in bad places and unhealthy human environments
- 2 Escape to Utopia, measuring people’s ideals and dreams and setting goals for the future
- 3Need of Entopia, the need for an intermediate space that will create frameworks bringing closer the two opposed poles of ideal and reality.
The relationship between Doxiadi’s Entopia and the Olympic City of Barcelona
Doxiadi’s concept of Entopia comes very close to the image that was presented in the
Olympic City of Barcelona and also to the ‘Symbiosis’ that we are trying to create between the Olympic Ideal and Social reality. I have based this thought on two main facts. Both notions follow the same concept line. Their ideas are based on a similar analysis of the city: The city as a realised Dystopia which needs to set goals based on
150 an ideal formula, Utopia, in order to overcome its basic problems and become a more human place to live.
According to Doxiadis, Dystopias were the result of a rapid increase of urban population, leading to ‘great concentrations in the urban settlements’(ref3.31). The city turned into a dynamic settlement affected by the new forces in transport and communications technology. Man started suffering from the growth of the city as a total organism, losing the picture of his city as a natural container, his connection with people and the surrounding social environment. Doxiadis claims that ‘we are deprived of our walls, our freedom to be ourselves-our independence’(ref3.32) ‘Buildings ‘tend to enclose us more and isolate us from our natural surrounding - by creating an inner space and by connecting us with the world outside in a mechanical and not in a natural way’.(ref 3.33)
Similarly, the first step of Barcelona’s regeneration was the realisation of its problems and needs, created mainly by the lack of an urban planning policy. Barcelona is a
European city with a long history in architecture and urban development. However after the second half of the 20 th century, it expanded from the centre and grew without order into one of the denser cities in the world. As a result there developed several outlying districts isolated from the centre. Part of the large scale project was the creation of a main plan , reconstructing and modernising the four main points of the city’s anarchic extension.
The establishment of common dreams was another factor that brought to success, the plans of the Olympic City of Barcelona. Doxiadis claims that ‘Our dreams remain
151 utopian because they are very personal and very subjective. What humanity needs is the realisation of common dreams. What each of us needs is the realisation of his own dreams within the framework of the common dream’.(3.34) Doxiadi’s words remind us of Mackay who said ‘You need a dream so that people become suddenly conscious of their city, and proud, and everything fits together’.(3.35) In the case of Barcelona’s re- birth planning this common dream involved:
-the return of the design to the re-creation of spaces of a social nature, such as streets, squares and parks;(i3.11, 3.13)
-the integration of the neighbouhood, socially and formally, into the urban continuum;
-the return to ‘the meaningful symbols of the community, notably those emanating from the traditional European City’(ref 3.38) and adapting them to new ways of living;
-easy access to different parts of the city and especially to the city’s natural elements.
Doxiadis had claimed that ‘Entopia has to provide for man’s welfare and happiness and therefore it has to take care of all five elements of the anthrocosmos -nature, man, society, shells and networks- and provide for their synthesis’(ref3.37) He emphasised that what it should matter in the creation of this synthesis is how one element meets and blends with the other’.(ref3.38)
152 The conversion of Barcelona into an Oylmpic City was not part of a pretentious and illusionary picture of happiness simply based on ‘comfort and pleasure’. Even the elements in the composition of the Olympic city’s ‘Image’ came to complement what was actually achieved in reality being less obviously product of an ‘imaginary utopia’.
The city’s ‘Areas of New Centrality’ concept is similar to the solutions that Doxiadis suggested for the creation of his Eutopia, based on the concept of ‘new centralisation’.
(ref3.38) Eutopia represents the building of a dynamic city with static cells, based on the definion of the city’s organisation, subdivisions and density. Doxiadis claimed that
‘we have committed a big mistake dissolving the human community of the past.
Entopia has to re-establish it and make it the basic unit of social organisation in the same way in which the family home is the basic unit of the family life...otherwise the minds of people are going to be always confused about where they belong in the whole structure of society’.(ref3.39) Similarly the Olympic city of Barcelona favoured the subdivision of the overall project into smaller scale projects, aiming at the redefinition of the city’s traditional urban morphology such as the neighbourhood, the street, the park and the communal space.
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154 Conclusions and Recommendations
Towards the future Olympic city
It is more than a century since the revival of the Modern Olympic Games. The Olympic
Ideal, exposed to different regional and urban contexts according to Coubertin’s wish, has been ‘transplanted’, being given different forms and images. During the last decades, the Olympic city has not simply acted as the temporary territory of the
Olympic Games, but as a stimulus for metamorphosis based on a diversity of planning proposals and imaginary scenarios.
The last Games took place in the city of Sydney. This Olympic city produced a very different design proposal from any previous city, aiming to create a link between the concept of Coubertin’s ‘Olympia’ and the image of a contemporary Olympic city. Its ideas were based on the desire for harmonious combination between man-made structures and the city’s natural environment and landscape, producing, according to
Coubertin’s words, ‘a building silhouette and a landscape that would be on equal terms; that would be harmonious: terraces, flights of enbankments and inclined planes...would be one of the most certain sources of eurythmy for the Olympic city and a guarantee of ample beauty and majestic grandeur for the ceremonies which would take place there’.(ref4.1)
The masterplan of the Sydney Olympic city is a contemporary representation of
Modern Olympia and a utopian design scheme based on a reconciliation between the
‘imaginary’ and the ‘ideal’. For the organisers of the Games, the design of the most
155 recent example of an Olympic city was based on an aesthetic strategy and on the production of a spectacular image, doing justice to the ideal found in the scenery of
Ancient Olympia. The design of the Olympic city emphasised the meaning of the
Olympic celebration, in the form of a festival, using modern architecture as a
‘framework for spectacle’ of global proportions, and the stadium as ‘a giant international studio, a backdrop to be seen by billions of spectators’. olsyd
There is no doubt that the Olympic City of Sydney possibly produced the most sophisticated buildings in the history of modern Olympic architecture, with a high degree of technicality and an impressive design. Even though it claims to be
‘comparable to the planned urban intensity’ of the Mexico 1968 and the Munich 1972
Olympic cities, it appears more as an intentional plan of a ‘microcosmos’, not being afraid to admit the scale and the global dimensions that the Olympic festival has acquired in our days, and to suggest it as an international model suitable for any
Olympic city in the future.
The Olympic city of the 2000 Games was a contrast to the design of the Barcelona 1992
Olympic city, characterised as a ‘transformed Olympic mecca’(ref4.2) and defined by
Coubertin as an ‘almost totally urban Olympic site’ - non suitable for the building of
‘Modern Olympia’.
Each Olympic city is the result of a combination of its own plans and imaginary scenarios, and therefore the design of it becomes more of a subjective matter of visual inerpretation and comprehension. Even though each Olympic city aims to be more spectacular and impressive than any previous one, it usually relies on its own visions,
156 sources of inspiration and method of visual representation, but also on its own criteria of how ‘successful’ it has been from a design point of view.
The two recent examples, Barcelona 1992 and Sydney 2000, have been characterised world-wide as the most ‘successful’ Games, from a design point of view, each one for its own reasons and for their different priorities and goals. On the one hand, the
Olympic city of Barcelona came to be reconciled with the idea of the ‘city’, based on an
‘ideal city’ plan, renewing its social and urban infrastructure. On the other hand the
Olympic city of Sydney became associated with the idea of a ‘cosmopolis’ and did justice to the contemporary ‘Olympic’ image and global meaning of the Games.
The Olympic city and the criterion of Symbiosis
The concept of ‘symbiosis’ recognises the diversity of styles and methods in which the
Olympic Ideal is visually interpreted, but at the same time it examines the Olympic city by an objective criterion and this is the degree of possible realisation of what the
Olympic city has envisaged as Olympic ideal.
As we explained before, the Olympic City of Barcelona represents an ultimate example in the creation of a ‘symbiosis’ between vision and reality, giving to the Olympic Ideal a practical meaning, something that the previous cities had not managed to achieve completely. Even though it has been almost a decade since the 1992 games were held,
Barcelona is still celebrating the achievements of that Olympiad, for the reason that the
Olympic Games ‘did not mark the end but the start of an ideal’. The Olympic city of
Barcelona was based on a framework devised to make the ‘ideal’ possible and allow
157 time to show the benefits from the organisation of the Games, until the possible becomes a reality. On the basis of a concept such as the one of Barcelona, the notion of the city has to be revised continuously and the ideal lives in ‘symbiosis’ with the real.
It is possibly too early to estimate the impact of the Sydney Olympic city on the permanent city’s social and urban reality, even though it is evident that we cannot talk about the creation of a ‘symbiosis’ similar to the one of the Barcelona Games. What it is certain, though, is that Sydney is proud of its new identity and modern infrastructure which in the design of its new stadium, discovered its ‘second Opera House’, ‘a secondary pole to the landmark features of Sydney’s down town’(ref4.3) and a new piece of monumental architecture.
The Olympic city of ‘Athens 2004’
In the year 2004, the Games return to the land where Olympism was born, the ancient
Olympic Ideal had flourished and the city where the first Olympic Games in the modern era were held in 1896. For the people of Athens the 2004 Games is seen as a great opportunity for the improvement of their city’s environmental conditions and infrastructure and as a hope for the city’s urban and social renewal. The vision of
Athens is to ‘initiate a new stage in the history of Olympism, to provide a practical framework for all faculties of Olympism -Sport, Culture and Education -‘ and to reach their ideal during the celebration of the 2004 Olympic Games.
Athens hosted the first Olympic Games during a time when even Coubertin’s conception of Modern Olympia had not been described, and certainly the concept for an
158 Olympic city did not exist, because of the size of the event. Even though it might seem pointless, it is worth mentioning the first Olympiad for one but very important reason: the meaning of the Olympics in the projection of the city’s ‘new identity’. The reason we are address the past is not to copy ideas or plans, but to emphasise the creative impact that the Games has had on all the levels of Arts: Architecture, Painting
Literature, Poetry and Theatre, supported from a great circle of artists, scholars, poets and intellectual groups from all over Greece.
The 19th century was a time during which Athens underwent many sociopolitical changes and the Games stood as a great opportunity for Athenians to show to the rest of the world the city’s ‘new’ identity, celebrating the country’s liberation from Turkish rule. The search for this new identity was an inspiration for many of those who belonged to the ‘intellectual’ society of Athens. The unbridled Romanticism had started to fade and artists, writers and scholars of the time found inspiration in the city’s and the country’s new image of redevelopment and re-creation. During that period some of these achievements, mostly drawn from the field of architecture were:
- A series of neo-classical buildings, such as the National Academy and Library, the
University and The ‘Grande Bretagne’ Hotel, designed by Th.Hansen, marked the city’s new building aesthetics. The design of the Zappeion Hall (1874-1888), a work by
F.Boulanger and Th.Hansen, is now considered one of the most successful examples of
European neo-classical architecture.
- Ernst Ziller was the name linked with the design of large stately houses, with a combination of Greek, Roman and Renaissance elements.
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-In 1876 the design of the Athens School of Architecture and Engineering was completed by the architect Lysandros Kaftantzoglou.
-‘Ancient Athens’ was brought back to light, after the excavations that unearthed monuments and sanctuaries in the vicinity of Acropolis and in the western part of the city, such as the Theatre of Dionysus, the ‘Theseion’and the Odeion of Herodes Atticus.
After systematic excavations took place, the monuments’ restoration project started.
- In 1869-70 the Panathenaic Stadium which hosted the 1896 Olympic Games, was unearthed. The reconstruction was completed by the German architect, Ernst Ziller, and the rebuilding by the Greek architect, Anastassios Metaxas.
- The city’s social life changed. The ‘kaffeneion’, was a meeting place for the Athenians a core for political discussions and debates and the gathering point for writers and artists.
- Open air theatres, restaurants, tavernas, clubs, pubs, tea rooms were built in various areas of Athens and had become the city’s social meeting points.
Like Barcelona, Athens is a European city with a long history and which in a century has been transformed into a huge megalopolis of almost four million inhabitants.
Athens during the last hundred years has moved from being a city of fifty thousand people, concentrated on the northern slopes of the Acropolis, to a megalopolis of 3.2
160 million, extending for 427,000 sq.km. After the second half of the 20 th century a great percentage of the Greek population moved to the capital, seeking a wealthier, more secure and prosperous way of life. A city which was for years a static community, changed suddenly into a dynamic settlement based on random planning. During the last decades Athens presented an image of a dystopia leading its people to an urban social chaos.
The population of Greater Athens has moved from 242,268 people in 1907 to 3,072,922 people in 1991, covering a surface of 427,000 sq.km. During the period 1946-1980 people from all different parts of Greece moved to the capital resulting in a ‘building boom’.
According to Doxiadis, the picture of Athens’ social and urban reality is incomplete.
Man has lost his contact with nature and has become a slave in his own environment, feeling less safe and free than ever before. There is the paradox that while our cities grow, the distance between people increases and man’s opportunities for privacy decrease. The connection with public space, the city centre and the neighbourhood has been lost. Similarly to Barcelona’s urban reality, during the sixties and seventies, the inside of our buildings satisfied us more than the outside - the public space. Athens faced a major traffic problem,since it had not been built to adjust to the new traffic networks and to the increasing number of cars. Athens has moved away from its human scale. The central squares, the public streets and the places that in the past were the cores of socialisation have now become less hospitable and more alienating. While public spaces and community life have lost their social value, Athenians have also lost the habit of participating in the life of their city.
161
The proposal of Athens for the 2004 Games emphasises the need for improvement in the quality of transportation and the environmental conditions of the city. The building of the New Athens International Airport, the Athens Metro and the construction of a new street network are the three large scale infrastructure projects. The design for the
Olympic city also includes a restoration plan of its historic centre and its surrounding areas.
The 2004 Games are an opportunity for Athens to continue what Barcelona started in the 1992 Olympics, reconciling the Olympic ideal with the history the social and urban reality of Athens. Athens should search for its ‘reconcilers’, the architects, the artists, the designers, the historians and the social theorists who will built an Olympic city, based on the realisation of people’s common dreams. It should draw inspiration from the simplicity of people’s enthusiasm during the first Olympic Games, but also on planning examples such as the ones found in Doxiadi’s theoretical example of
‘Entopia’.
Athens has the chance to prove that the revival of the Olympic ideal is not simply an eclectic synthesis between theory and reality but a symbiosis between the two and to prove that there is an ultimate purpose behind the organisation of the Games and the role of the Olympic city.
In a question whether a design strategy similar to the one of the Sydney Olympics, would be suitable for the design of Athens 2004, the answer would be ‘No’ for two main reasons:
162
Firstly, Athens and similarly most of the old cities which faced mid 20 th century urbanism, provide the ground for ‘symbiosis’ between past and present ideals, whereas
‘symbiosis’ has no reason -no need - to apply into an example of a recently developed city.
Secondly, the building of an Olympic Architecture based on megastructure or monumental forms, such as the Frei Otto athletic complex or the Sydney’s satellite city of sport at Homebush Bay, into a city like Athens would be a subject best left to further arguments and debates, considered by many as a ‘sacrilege’, overshadowing the city’s existing historic and symbolic value.
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