The Olympic Games and the Production of the Public Realm Mexico City 1968 and Rio De Janeiro 2016

Fernanda Canales THE OLYMPIC GAMES AND THE PRODUCTION OF THE PUBLIC REALM MEXICO CITY 1968 AND RIO DE JANEIRO 2016 For Brazil, which is currently the world’s eighth largest economy and is tipped to become the fi fth, the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2016 represent a unique opportunity. Fernanda Canales looks at Rio de Janeiro 2016 in light of Mexico City 1968, and considers how the Games should provide an occasion for both urban regeneration and also recasting the city’s often previously confl icting image for an international audience. 5252 Rio de Janeiro, 2016 Mexico City, 1968 opposite: The new projects, Barra below: Housing and sports facilities built Media Village (by BCMF Arquitetos) and alongside Anillo Periférico on the outskirts Barra Cluster (by BCMF Arquitetos and of the city, where the idea of a new and LUMO Arquitectura) for Barra de Tijuca, modern territory was implemented. a nouveau-riche neighbourhood at the wealthiest end of the city, where more than half of the new facilities will be located. It is almost a cliché to say that the Olympic Games have been a strategic tool for the deployment of urban agendas. However, prior to the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, with the possible exception of Berlin 1936, no other city had embarked on such an ambitious urban revitalisation project that combined infrastructure, culture and communication as a way to reimagine a city. This moment may well represent a turning point between the idea of architectural and cultural modernity and another based on political and social renewal. In the case of Latin America – Mexico in 1968 and Brazil in 2016 – the Olympic Games not only explain much of the urban and social agenda of these countries, but also account for the idea of modernity itself. In both cases, with an interval of almost 50 years, the main aim has been that of presenting an image of a unifi ed, homogeneous and planned territory. Instead of understanding the Olympic Games merely as an excuse to upgrade transportation systems, improve housing and infrastructure, they have increasingly become a great anti-crime policy, a health policy, a social equaliser: an assertion of modernity and cohesion. The Olympic Games in Mexico City offered a renewal strategy based primarily on representation. They were the fi rst Olympic Games in the world to be televised in colour and to be ‘aired’ live via satellite communications, attesting to the profound relevance given to their representation as image.1 The social crisis characterised by the student rebellions of 1968, came to a head with the Tlatelolco massacre in which hundreds were killed by military forces scarcely 10 days before inauguration. The Games were thus constructed by decisions based on what to show and how to show it. The exaltation of structures of power, exemplifi ed by the relevance given to the formal power of institutional architecture, set the tone for a city that wanted to be seen from the outside, and was therefore made to be perceived in motion, primarily through television, by car or by plane. 53 Mexico City, 1968 bottom: The construction of the modern Barcelona, 1992 below: Project by Mathias Goeritz in which city was based on the idea of mobility opposite: Villa Olimpica, a legacy of the a 17-kilometre/10.5-mile (vehicular) and the use of cars. Olympics of 1992 which regenerated the route of sculptures made by artists from city, and especially its relationship with diverse countries connected the different the waterfront. dispersed Olympic sites, tracing the path and expansion of the Anillo Periférico (peripheral ring) in an interesting mixture of culture, art and infrastructure. Anillo Periférico was in itself a model of urban modernity, as had been the case of Torres de Satélite built by Goeritz and Luis Barragán a decade earlier. The Olympics in Mexico were a spectacular communication and design programme, but above all they were the vehicle to present a facade of unity and modernity. 54 The Olympics in Mexico were a million to 6 million), the urban area increased instead of the just weeks that the Olympic spectacular communication and design by more than 100 per cent, from 200 to 320 Games usually last – are the main ingredients programme, but above all they were the square kilometres (77.2 to 123.5 square of the upcoming Games, planned for all vehicle to present a facade of unity and miles), and the number of cars tripled, from spectators to arrive by public transport, on modernity. This emphasis on coordination, 130,000 to 450,000 in a fast-growing area foot or by bicycle, and for infrastructure to be or ‘Olympic identity’, was highlighted by the where 60 per cent of the settlements were downsized, sold and reused. beginning of the construction of the subway created illegally. In a manner similar to that of London’s system as a new way of organising the city. While in Mexico, after the confrontation in green agenda and that of Beijing’s ostentation Unlike the graphics – which would become Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco, public of modern China on the global stage, Brazil a landmark – and the artistic contributions space took on negative connotations for the plans to use the Olympics as a way of – with the creation of the Cultural Olympics political order, in other examples, Barcelona showing off the country’s transformation. planned to last the entire year – the fi rst being the most paradigmatic, the creation of The Rio de Janeiro Olympic and Paralympic Olympic Games in Latin America produced a modern metropolis was based on the idea Games in 20167 are based to a great extent little architecture worth noting. They of a city focused on open spaces. Operation on fostering the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India were particularly characterised by specifi c Barcelona ’92 consisted of transforming and China) economies. They are planned interventions scattered around a growing old factories, opening the city towards the to take place in metropolitan Rio, mainly in urban footprint. The choice of locations was sea and giving the outskirts a monumental Barra de Tijuca where more than half of the based on the availability of government- nature, but above all it was based on the Olympic facilities will be located, but also in owned property and on adaptations on transformation of a city by defi ning its the districts of Maracaná, Copacobana and existing buildings, accentuating the pressing public space, conceived as a system for Deodoro. This choice is intended to focus need for a coherent and strong image. The guaranteeing citizenship and freedom.3 the Olympic investments on the regions entire city, already brimming over, was Whereas the Olympic Games in Mexico where the greatest amount of development imagined as the Olympic stage, unlike past City signifi ed the end of a period marked is currently aimed, although a prevailing Olympic Games where most construction lay by the fi gure of the architect as a planner rhetoric promises to distribute the Games’ within Olympic villages.2 or strategist4 – from Mario Pani to Ramírez benefi ts among the general population.8 As social contrasts and the demand for Vázquez5 – the Olympics in Barcelona Rio de Janeiro, boasting on one hand its national democratisation increased after in 1992, on the other hand, marked the condition as one of the fi ve most urbanised the student riots, architecture, as well beginning of the city of architects. As a cities of Southern America9 and, on the as public space, gradually became more result of the successful ‘Barcelona model’, other hand, its 90 kilometres (55.9 miles) of monumental and representative and less a architectural euphoria has nurtured many beaches and image of virginal paradise, has place for interacting. Public congregations of the Olympic strategies since then (from always been a city confl icting between two began to represent a threat to government Beijing to London).6 However, for London main ideals: that of development understood authorities, which favoured not the use of 2012, the sustainable legacy angle is in terms of building and growth and that of open architecture characterised by plazas and stronger. Bringing the East End closer to the conserving nature. The dichotomies between patios, but a new city thought out for the use centre, replacing polluted areas with green its exuberant nature and an urban landscape of cars. While the population doubled (from 3 spaces and thinking long term – 30 years sprawling across its territory have defi ned its 55 Rio de Janeiro, 2016 opposite: Street view of Rio de Janeiro, below: Aerial View of Rio de Janeiro, February 2010. Nature and informality October 2010. clustered in different pockets across Rio form a strong visual contrast to the planned city. 56 split identity. With the Olympics, Rio regains France, has to integrate the squalid districts as a national project, replaced by isolated actions on the capital condition that had been stolen within the city, transforming favelados into a smaller scale in which the public realm has been progressively controlled and fenced in. by Brasilia in 1960 and searches for the citizens in a project for the city that attempts 3. With architect Oriol Bohigas as the main driving force possibility of reimagining the coexistence of to build in seven years more infrastructure behind the defi nition of a new contemporary culture informal growth with planning, as well as than in the past 50 years. through the formalisation of public space and as the person responsible for post-Franco urban planning in reconciling nature with urban development in The Olympics as a strategy of Barcelona, public funds were used to design the empty a territory where dichotomies are accentuated representation reveals the forces at work spaces, the voids in the city.

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