The Olympics and the Global City
Saskia Sassen introduces the Global City as a massive expanding place highly influenced by western (American culture). Clearly, from many essays and articles about Critical Regionalism, the impending threat of global cities has been a recognized concept for the last 60 years.
Where did this pressure to become so modern and so "Americanized" come from? Where did the world make the shift from being good at being different to everyone competing for the same title? Saskia Sassen mentions a slew of Global Cities and one of the things that all of these have in common is they have hosted the Olympics at some point in time.
The Olympics has become the new World Exposition; the spotlight is globally on one country and there is an amazing amount of pressure for that country to appear incredibly modernized, westernized and current. The last few hosted Olympic games, in Beijing and Sochi, we saw all of the big starchitects at large designing the housing and the major arenas. The aftermath, as seen in Rome and Barcelona are these awkwardly "placed" global neighborhoods within beautiful, authentic cities.
Why is this the norm? Wouldn't it be so much more interesting if the city (or nation rather) applied the latest technology to create authentic and critically correct architecture that represented that nation globally? Does Zaha Hadid need to have a hand in designing every single Olympic Park in her lifetime? Why does Herzog and de Muron represent the world of competitive athletes?
I think this is a great question. It seems as though the world is recognizing the issues with globalization and the spread of western culture, but continues to propagate it. How can we take the upper hand away from the starchitects and give it to the regional practitioners? Could it have something to do with ever-shortening project timelines and growing project sizes? Are they just the best fit for these extremely high-profile projects? How can we change the culture of construction to allow smaller firm a chance?
ReplyDeleteI think your post could apply to nearly every international event. It's interesting how these countries are placed on such a public stage yet they always seem to fail in regionally representing themselves. I think that in the future, countries shouls begin to think less globally in preparation for these big events and really show what their country is about.
ReplyDelete