Olympic Stadium
What do you think?
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With all that scaffolding round it, it looks like it isn't finished yet. Perhaps they have factored in an overrun into the design?
I'm sure it will be fab, really.
Pretty.
The words "Pink" and "donut" come to mind. Hardly inspiring, is it?
Wow!- Looks great.
I didn't know that they had even started on it!
The should have copied the Colosseum (the Flavian Amphitheater).
It looks like something which would be more commonly found at a children's tea party. Why are there big smarties scattered around it?
Reminds me of a cherry cheesecake - mmmm .. delicious - I could just slice through the sides.
Just started raining here with an annoying biting wind. 12.8 degrees for those that undersatnd those things
It looks like every other sports stadium I've not been able to avoid seeing, but it'll be well worth umpteen billion pounds, obviously.
Ow. I think I sprained my sarcasm muscle there.
My mention of Julie Felix has caused a bit of a commotion on Facebook (she performed two songs last night - marvellous woman! Eddie, you should interview her, you really should!)
So, as a public service, I've provided a link to her website via my name.
Gillian (5)
I think the big smarties are the people who said it would cost 1/3 billion but, allowing for inflation plus VAT it's 1 billion. Seems like everything else that's experiencing 2% inflation or whatever the Govt's official figure is. Call Robert Peston...
As 90% of the UK will only watch it on television – it would have looked just as good, and a lot cheaper, if it was in Paris.
What a total waste of money!
The words white and elephant spring to mind.
How quickly we forget such other stupid creations such as the dome!
Gillian you are right - they are smarties!
Hell, we'll have to import more Poles if we want that to stay in budget.
Couldn't they have just upturned the millennium dome?
With bread and circuses, who needs a viable export economy?
Re: BigSis - Yes what a commotion on Facebook - and I have my fingers crossed for your Daffyd.
I for one am amazed at how Fifi was initially very dismissive about facebook and now her beach thread has more comments than the PM Beach.
A clear testimony to how well facebook actually works. Now if Eddie had a facebook profile we could poke and slap him.
Jimmy (14), Is is not the upturned dome then? Blimey, I'm out of touch...
Not one monolithic block or collection of housing I have ever seen looks anything like the idealised architect's design picture of it published beforehand. Am I supposed to believe that this example of 'we hope it may look a bit like this if the light is exactly right and you like it anyway' is more accurate?
How much did the mere *picture* cost?
Oh, and why is the lighting dark round it, when some isolated background buildings are fully-lit and look as if the sun is shining against one side of them?
Jonnie: Eddie on Facebook? Lovely image! ;o)
Thanks for your thoughts for Dafydd. He's very poorly at the moment, but being a feisty guy is hanging on hard. I'll tell him Jonnie was asking about him - It will make all the difference!
Ok - at the risk of prompting my earlier post to miraculously appear...
First thoughts - birthday cake
It's rrrrrrrrubbish! Compared to the spectacular Beijing offering this is just embarrassing!
Roof providing cover for two-thirds of spectators - Wow! two-thirds eh! Never rains here, so the other third will be fine!
Facilities such as catering and merchandising will be grouped into self-contained 'pod' structures. - so you'll have to actually leave the stadium to go for a burger? Great!
The stadium would make a big impact, but not in the same way that previous Olympic stadia had. - so they've all been doing it wrong?
This is not a stadium that's going to be screaming from the rooftops that it's bigger and more spectacular - too right!
We've ended up with a very tight, very compelling bowl - perhaps the result of a very tight, very compelling budget?
I see it's expected to seat 80 thousand for the olympice, but will later be converted to a 30 thousand-seater stadium for domestic use.
Are we expecting mostly Japanese and pygmies for the olympiad?
xx
ed
A woman forgives the audacity of which her beauty has prompted us to be guilty.
-- LeSage
I hope the price includes a sliding roof...
Is this a general invitation, ‘What do you think?’ I think I visited the 1992 Olympic stadium in Barcelona once, and I think quite a lot of unrelated thoughts.
Anyone would think this had actually BEEN built...
Completion of this is a very long way away, and no doubt it will be over budget by the time of its inevitably delayed opening..
Is there any point in ‘standing outside a moving cinema’? Presumably you can’t see the film from that position, and presumably the whole building will have moved out of view before too long....
I think it looks like a trifle.
It is a shame they did not allow the creativity of Local Architects to be on display when the Olympics starts.
Just one question... where is the roof? I can see the whole event taking place in the middle of a typical British summer... lots of rain.
As usual the price tag for anything related to the event is bigger, larger, greater than the original price tag.
It looks banal, temporary and seriously over-priced .
Why is it that London can't produce exciting, usable buildings at sensible prices ? They should have given the job to Manchester's Commonwealth Games team good stuff, on time, on price.
What a marvellous statement of British architecture. Totally fresh and innovative. Oops, sorry, I have just heard that it was designed by Americans.
What a marvellous statement of American architecture. Totally fresh and innovative! Looks just like every other American football/basketball stadium. I bet it doesn't have the car parking spaces though.
Come on, we can do better than this. Just because the Dome was a flop doesn't mean we couldn't have designed something ourselves.
Ed @ 21, I wondered about that (though for some reason I thought it was 25,000 not 30,000 that it was to hold in the end). I also thought I heard it said as 'an athletics stadium holding 25,000 of the local community', and wondered very much about how local 'local' is: I don't see 25,000 Londoners turning out to watch athletics very often. How popular is athletics: will it really pull in an audience that size on a regular basis?
What happened to the designs submitted by British architects.?
Why slavishly buy an American design?
Is it yet another doggie bone left over from the cowboy Blair regime which commits yet more of our talents to the scrap heap in favour of the
American dream machine like the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ and its slavish sucking up to everybody with a cowboy accent making one wonder if the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ is unaware that there are other countries in the world apart from America and Britain..
wow, by weird coincidence my page-per-day "Art Now" calendar is today displaying a lovely picture of a stadium. Albeit a piece of photographed video art with an almost empty pitch/performance area.
I have to say that the picture looks ok but not that exciting and the "moving cinema" aspect looks uncannily like a dodgy Saturday morning sports show montage. Could work at night but if they are genuinely projecting onto it all day I can't imagine you'll see much in daylight hours even with pretty powerful projectors unless they know 2012 will be an especially dark/rainy/polluted summer. I wonder what the carbon footprint of the concrete bowl, massive lighting rigs and projection is?
Of course outdoor screenings are pretty fun (and wind disturbance will make for some interesting special effects on even pretty strong fabrics) and if the projectors get sold off as quickly as the Millennium Dome ones were I'm sure they'll be cinematic bargains galore in 2013.
I am intrigued by how the "temporary" seating is both structurally sound and easily removable but I'm sure it's fine.
The smartie-filled carnival style promo animation is lovely though - like a Shynola directed Eurovision intro. I'd like to think everything will appear by magic and then get lots of happy legacy use but I'm sure they'll be some actual builders and a lot of sponsers logos required to make that final bowl beast.
Think your architect commentator was right - they could have something more exciting and innovative. A very giant shower curtain is a strangely British way of being different though.
One question: how do we know this isn't going to turn into The New Wembley Stadium Fiasco Mk. II? I hope Multiplex aren't being allowed anywhere near the site...
The Chintz Bowl. Was it designed by Laura Ashley?
I think it looks beautiful and a suitable companion to the London Eye. I'm relieved it isn't another lump of concrete.
it's just loike me......big and expensive but gorgeous just the same!
DiY:)
.... or a half eaten blancmange.
Why does it seem to inspire thoughts of children's food?
A new-age candle burner with Japanese pebbles.
Or a hideous waste of money and thorough pain for Londoners and many others.
Frances O @ 39, it's politically incorrect and even if we think it we aren't allowed to say that we think the Olympics coming to London and blighting an area that was quietly getting regenerated, costing a lot of money and involving the confiscation from the public of land granted to the *in perpetuity* and its sale to speculative builders once the event is over, is a mistake. We're lumbered and we have to put up with it. We survived Hitler, we can survive this, and so forth.
It would be nice if it were all a bit less of a predictable mess, though. Can't they at least do something interesting that makes everything go wrong, like dig up a Viking burial ship on the site or something? A mere boring stadium is so-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o dull...
In a word: it's pedantic.
Mind you, I can't say much, for I am from Montreal. I worked in the "Big Owe" during the Games; our stadium was not finished till years later and only completely paid for last year! Ergo, I believe that any city the even bids on hosting the Olympics is completely daft! Particularly post 9/11 with the security costs.
I cannot believe the uglyness of it. If you look closely, the area at the back is in complete darkness (for the blind olympics I suppose).
What a waste of money and opportunity!
Disgrace!!!
hmm.... this is an artist's impression so I wouldn't trust the colours too much. As Chris Fish pointed out, the photoshopping isn't brilliant (daytime photos darkened for effect??)
Actually, I reckon this will feel a bit like a cross between the IMAX (in London) and a giant marquee.
and is that that bad?
To my mind visual design in the UK is stronger than its architecture (begin the fighting..), and this approach gives an opportunity to present thousands of contemporary designs and ideas, rather than one single monumental building which will always split opinion.
A bit like leaving the plinth 'empty' in Trafalgar square, or the turbine hall in Tate Modern.
the economics I'll leave for now...
Well, Whisht, (and lovely to see you btw) you have a point. But it isn't "architecture", perhaps, and that's where the debate comes in.
It did occur to me yesterday, though, that it seems to chime in well with the logo. They'll both be very mutable.
If you travel the world to view sporting events you will find in almost every instance that, apart from the natives, we Brits are the largest and most enthusiastic section of the crowd.
So now we are to have our own Olympics in our own stadiums. Please can we show at least a little positivity and ENJOY ourselves.
Well, they're not 'my' Olympics and I can't see how it's 'my' stadium.
I fully plan to leave London for the duration.
Having paid through the nose for it beforehand, of course.
Frances O @ 46, I know someone who is planning to move out of Newham as soon as poosible, selling the house to get away from the whole Olympic business. The local market is being destroyed as a place for locals, and the security measures all over the place will make life intolerable, seem to be the main reasons, as well as resentment at the increase in the council tax. Oh, and local cycling is being made difficult, apparently, with safe, carless routes like the Greenway being shut *now* for the Olympics and no alternative being offered.