BOSTON SUMMER 2024

Boston is capable of providing adequate venues, transportation, and housing for the Olympic competitions, competitors, and spectators in a way that will not create architectural burdens for the city. With careful architectural design and master planning, Boston can host the 2024 Olympic Games without the negative effects suffered by other Olympic host cities.

logo

SUMMARY

The ancient Olympics started in 776 BC and continued until 393 AD in Olympia, Greece. The modern Olympics began in 1896 in Athens. In 1894 Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the governing body of the Games. The IOC is responsible for choosing the host city every two years alternating between the Summer and Winter Games by selecting the official candidates from the applicant cities and then evaluating the cities based on their plans for the Olympic Village, transportation, security, accommodations, venues, and environmental impact. The US National Olympic Committee selected Boston as the US bid city for the 2024 Summer Olympics over Washington DC, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Host cities are typically chosen about eight years before their respective Games. By Spring of 2016, the IOC will have selected its official Candidate Cities. Boston, Rome (“Italy”), Hamburg (“Hamburg”), and Paris have stepped forward as Candidate host Cities.

The economic and social impact of hosting the Games on the host cities has become a topic of interest in the architecture community as the designers of the Olympic facilities. Cities bid to host hoping to boost tourism, economy, infrastructure, and transportation; but hosting the Games has proven to be detrimental to several cities after the Games are over. Hosting the Olympic Games is a great honor for its country but many cities have shown the negative effects of hosting. Examples include: Berlin 1936, Sarajevo 1984, Athens 2004, Torino 2006, Beijing 2008, and Sochi 2014.athensIn all of these instances, Olympic venues have become useless burdens on their cities. This is often a result of cities building completely new facilities for the sole purpose of Olympic venues. Some cities have been able to keep facilities in use by simply renovating existing structures, creating temporary structures to be relocated, or carefully planning for its post-Olympic use. Examples include: Finland 1940, Rome 1960, Moscow 1980, Lake Placid 1980, Barcelona 1992, and Salt Lake City 2002. When Finland’s Games were cancelled because of World War II, Helsinki’s tennis complex was turned into a movie theater and an art museum that is still in use today (Finnkino). Rome’s Olympic Village was converted to an apartment complex. romeMoscow’s Luzhniki Arena was built as an open-air arena then covered for the Games and is used today mainly for hockey games but also as a concert venue. The velodrome is still in use as a cycling training facility and the Olympic Pool is still used as a recreational pool (Idov). Lake Placid’s facilities are still in use today for Olympic training, including bobsled tracks, hockey rink, ski jumps, and practice facilities. Barcelona redeveloped the city’s waterfront through the Games and all of the pools are open to the public today (Stump). The Olympic Park and Olympic Oval of Salt Lake City are still in use and “hold public activities like zip lines, an Alpine slide and public ice skating” (Stump). Rio 2016’s master plan includes 10 existing, 8 renovated, 9 new permanent, and 7 new temporary competition venues. Therefore, potential host cities should anticipate uses for Olympic facilities after the Games.

Boston has the potential to be a future example of how to successfully plan for hosting the Olympics. ‘Today’ interviewed sports management professor Lisa Delpy Neirotti says “[t]he biggest key to setting up success for a city after an Olympic closing is simply having a plan” (Stump). To do so, Boston should look to the example of a city just on the other side of the country: Salt Lake City. In 2002, Utah hosted the Winter Olympics and today all of those facilities are still in use. The lesson that Boston should learn from this is the plan they established to make this possible. The community formed the Salt Lake Olympic Committee volunteer program and divided into a 3-phase system: Pre-Games, Games, and Paralympic Games. Mitt Romney served as the president and CEO of the Salt Lake Olympic Committee. As a former Governor of Massachusetts (2003-2007), Romney is likely to step up as a key player for the organization of Boston’s Olympic Games (Call). For Boston to be successful, a similar volunteer committee needs to take Salt Lake’s plan a step further with a 4-phase system by adding a Post-Games phase. Boston is capable of providing adequate venues, transportation, and housing for the Olympic competitions and its spectators in a way that will not create architectural burdens for the city.

Henderson analyzed the work of Eva Kassens-Noor of Michigan State University, who researched the five most recent Summer Olympic cities (Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000, Athens 2004, London 2012) and the upcoming host city (Rio de Janeiro 2016). Kassens-Noor asserts that local governments need to plan transportation and design for the city’s long-term needs, not just the event’s short-term needs. Kassens-Noor emphasizes the vitality of an adequate individualized transportation plan for the city due to the massive amounts of people (Henderson 2012). US News ranked Boston as the fourth best city for public transportation and WalkScore and Business Insider ranked Boston as third best. Boston’s public transit is the fifth largest in the US serving 1.3 million passengers weekly (MBTA) and consists of a system of subways, trains, buses, and ferries to serve the greater Boston area. Renovations for the transit system are already planned in preparation for potentially hosting the Games.mbta

Housing for Olympic athletes and spectators is a crucial contributor to architectural projects in host cities. There are 13 medium to large colleges in Boston which could serve as Summer Olympic Villages. UMass-Boston is likely to be selected as the Olympic Village (Globe). This selection works incredibly well because UMass is looking to transition from a commuter campus to a residential campus so they require new housing facilities as it is. As a major US city, Boston attracts many tourists throughout the year. In addition to the competing athletes, the Boston Marathon attracts 500,000 spectators each year. This is just one example of Boston’s ability to accommodate large fluctuating crowds. With its extensive transit system, spectators can be housed outside of the city and commute in for events, just like so many people commute into the city everyday for work.

The architecture of venues is the most important and potentially wasteful aspect of hosting Olympic Games. Boston is home to five professional sports teams that play in three venues with capacities of 18,000, 37,500, and 68,750 people. In addition, there are seven semi-professional teams and 110 Division 1 athletic teams from four universities within the city. All of these 122 teams utilize practice, training, and game facilities throughout the Boston area. The city hosts its annual Boston Marathon, which draws about 30,000 participations each year. With such a strong athletic culture and many venues throughout the city, Boston would not require a lot of new venues. According to 2024 Boston’s official website, “10% of the venues will use new permanent facilities” (2024 Boston). A few venues have been identified as likely venues for the Olympic Games: Harvard’s Field Hockey Stadium, Beacon Park’s Aquatics Complex, TD Garden, Boston Common, Fenway Park, Boston Harbor, and Gillette Stadium (Globe). An important venue missing at this time is a Main Olympic Stadium to hold the Opening and Closing Ceremonies with a capacity of 60,000. The current plan is to design the temporary Olympic Stadium at Widett Circle for Opening and Closing Ceremonies and track and field events. This temporary stadium proposes a design to be delivered by modular and temporary stadium construction by specialized firms with almost all reusable elements (2024 Boston).Widett Stadium

The Olympic Games are a near sacred event for people across the world. Although they are based in friendly competition, the Games bring everyone together to enjoy various sporting events and ignite a sense of national pride. For 16 days, one nation is on display to the world. Past successful Olympic host cities have excelled due to utilization of existing venues, transportation, and extensive planning. Boston has a strong athletic culture with some of the most successful, and envied, professional teams across all major sports. With many stadiums and a large public transportation system already in use that connects people to these venues, Boston is the best candidate to host the 2024 Olympic Games.

 

SOURCES

IMAGE CREDIT

Alternet.org

PERIODICAL

Architect Magazine

Leave a Reply