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Games stadium may become new Acropolis
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-08-12 13:01
In the baking midday sun two days before its Friday opening night, the
72,000-seat Athens Olympics stadium looked more like an empty stage set than the
modern-day Acropolis that enthusiasts predict it will become.
The seats are empty, a few birds hop about, a couple of cleaning women with
mops tart up the ground level while giant pieces of sculpture lie like
mysterious Easter Island artefacts on the covered stadium field.
They are waiting to be used in the spectacular opening night ceremony that
will trade heavily on images of ancient Greece's gods and goddesses.
For some unexplained reason, Italian-American Dean Martin's voice is belting
out "That's Amore" on the loudspeakers outside the stadium.
But that sort of internationalism perfectly fits Spaniard Santiago
Calatrava's radical redesign of a stadium originally completed in 1982.
Calatrava's reinvention is capped by a new swirling, swooping roof that has
been compared to wings, double bow strings and even a mollusk.
One American newspaper predicted the curved shell structure "will leave more
people breathless than Athens fog."
The building is the signature motif of the 28th Olympics, inspired no doubt
by similar buildings that have dominated the international architecture scene
for years, breathing new life into cities searching to reestablish themselves in
the minds of tourists and investors.
Two Examples
Think of Frank Gehry's shiplike Disney Hall in Los Angeles or his Guggenheim
Museum in Barcelona as just two examples of the trend.
Many an Olympics these days, whether it be Tokyo or Sydney, has thrown up
buildings aimed at getting on the international map.
The slow pace of the stadium's roof construction came to symbolise the
turmoil and procrastination of Athens's effort to host its first Games since
1896.
All of Athens and the world wanted to know if the Greeks could get the roof
up in time and many were happy to bet that it would not.
But a last minute spurt of energy got it installed even if the stadium's
grounds still resemble a dust-covered building site and the cost for it and
surrounding stadiums and venues skyrocketed to more than $300 million.
Some say that Calatrava might one day overshadow Gehry, who is now in his
70s.
But he is a controversial figure. His mast for the Barcelona Olympics was
accused of looking a lot like a radiator ornament on a pre-war Cadillac.
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