© @2012 The Olympic City Project Trebević Bobsled Track, Sarajevo 1984
Every country hosting an Olympics always claims that they will re-use the buildings afterwards. Some, like London, seem to be on their way to succeeding.
But what about all the others? Since 2008, photographer Jon Pack and filmmaker Gary Hustwit have been touring abandoned Olympic sites across the world. What a trip.
© @2012 The Olympic City Project Grzegorz Kowalski's Olympic sculpture "Reloj Solar", Mexico City 1968
The show, The Post-Olympic City, at New York's Storefront for Art and Architecture, documents their travels to former Olympic sites in Athens, Barcelona, Mexico City, Los Angeles, Montreal, Lake Placid, Rome and Sarajevo. They plan to get to Beijing, Berlin, Moscow and London next.
© @2012 The Olympic City Project Athens Olympic Sports Complex (OAKA), Athens 2004
First noted at flavourpill, they called the show "the very best of Olympic ruin porn". So here goes.
© @2012 The Olympic City Project Grand Olympic Auditorium (now Glory Church of Jesus Christ), Los Angeles 1932
Some of the former Olympic sites are retrofitted and used in ways that deny their grand beginnings; turned into prisons, housing, malls, gyms, churches.
© @2012 The Olympic City Project Athens Olympic Sports Complex (OAKA), Athens2004
Others sit unused for decades and become time capsules.
© @2012 The Olympic City Project Tower of Montreal at the base of the Olympic Stadium, Montreal 1976
Montreal's mayor famously said 'The Montreal Olympics can no more have a deficit, than a man can have a baby.' However, it took until 2006 for Quebec to pay off its buildings, calling it the Big Owe (after the doughnut-shaped Olympic stadium which had been called the Big O).
© @2012 The Olympic City Project Piscina Municipal de Montjuïc, Barcelona 1992
At last, a success story with this glorious pool in Barcelona (1992). The Olympics provided an opportunity for Barcelona to develop its infrastructure in a spectacular way; using famous Spanish architects and making it well-known on the world scene.
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