Hipster Duck
Senior Member
My point was that a landscape cluttered with stadia is a waste of a perfectly liveable waterfront.
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Toronto 2008 Olympics: A city that might have been
- Thread starter FutureMayor
- Start date
My point was that a landscape cluttered with stadia is a waste of a perfectly liveable waterfront.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
toforumer:
I wouldn't take these renderings as "what would have been" - they are basically there to illustrate the broad strokes of the Olympic bid, not what the actual buildings (or even placement of the buildings) would have been like.
AoD
I wouldn't take these renderings as "what would have been" - they are basically there to illustrate the broad strokes of the Olympic bid, not what the actual buildings (or even placement of the buildings) would have been like.
AoD
toforumer
Active Member
LOL...I don't really post much here but I guess your one of the most critical posters here on how someone phrases their comments. I'm just saying what the waterfront could have been transformed in to. It would be somewhat similar to these pictures. No big deal in a comment like that.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
toforumer:
It wasn't a personal attack of any kind - in fact, you're doing a public service by posting them. I had to emphasize my comment re: the purpose because quite frankly, I thought those computer generated "renderings" are absolutely atrocious, even at its' time 7 years ago. Gawd, the olympic stadium was *awful*.
AoD
It wasn't a personal attack of any kind - in fact, you're doing a public service by posting them. I had to emphasize my comment re: the purpose because quite frankly, I thought those computer generated "renderings" are absolutely atrocious, even at its' time 7 years ago. Gawd, the olympic stadium was *awful*.
AoD
toforumer
Active Member
The Olympic stadium designs tend to change after a bid is won anyways. Ask London 2012 about that.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
Indeed, and not necessarily for the better I might add! London went from fancy to cheap...and nobody was happy about that at all. In fact, olympic stadiums have a rather checkered history as architectural pieces: such as the complaint leveled at Sydney's Stadium Australia being mediocre piece of work.
AoD
AoD
toforumer
Active Member
Everyone must admit that Beijing's new Olympic Stadium is quite iconic even if your not a big fan of the twisted steel work. We haven't seen such an iconic new stadium for the Olympics like this in a very long time.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
I don't know, Athens' was a refit of an old stadium built in the 80s, but it certainly looked like one of the best (and I preferred it over the Bird's Nest - which is overly ostenatious IMO).
AoD
AoD
shumoon
New Member
I would hardly call Chicago the "frontrunner" for 2016. Its name does appear first in the IOC press release.
http://www.olympic.org/uk/news/media_centre/press_release_uk.asp?release=2593
At the end of the press release, the IOC states, "*Cities are listed in the order of drawing of lots."
Dichotomy
Banned
Gasp, I hope we are not comparing Toronto to Chicago! I just came back from there. Love the city.
Toronto is a sandbox compared to Chicago. If they are contending, we wouldn't stand a chance. Millenium Park is amazing.
And, surprise, surprise, it co-exists with 8 and 10 lane roadways everywhere.
Toronto is a sandbox compared to Chicago. If they are contending, we wouldn't stand a chance. Millenium Park is amazing.
And, surprise, surprise, it co-exists with 8 and 10 lane roadways everywhere.
shumoon
New Member
^ While Chicago may have good automobile access, it is currently facing tremendous public transportation problems, especially when compared to two of its competing cities. Chicago isn't competing against Toronto for 2016. It's up against Tokyo and Madrid. Transit woes are Chicago's Achilles Heal, which is why I don't consider it the frontrunner for 2016.
JasonParis
Moderator
While I care very little about the Olympics, I do admit that in Toronto's case they could do quite a bit of good. However, it wasn't our time and I wish people would just get over it for now. When we are able to make a serious bid again (probably within 20 years), we'll be that much stronger of a city with a significant waterfront, far better transit infrastructure and a much more urban and "completed" downtown core. Our time will come and I'm happy to wait.
Dichotomy
Banned
jn_12
Senior Member
One park and some wide roads doesn't get you an Olympics. Have you been to London? How about Athens? Neither have wide roads and I guess St James Park is nice, but they didn't get the Olympics because of it.
In fact, Atlanta is probably the most car catered city in North America and maybe the world and it held what is widely regarded as the worst Olympics on record. So roads and parks mean nothing.
Things can be built. In 8 years you can build a Millennium Park. You can build anything. All it takes is the willingness to do so. The IOC isn't concerned with what you have. They want to see that you have a plan and that it can be successful. Ya you need some sort of transit and infrastructure in place as a backbone, and Toronto has that. Everything else can be built in less than a decade.
urbanboom
Active Member
Yeah, but I heard that one of the reasons that Toronto lost was because we didn't have a subway to York University, one of the proposed Olympic venues. Wouldn't the IOC assume that we would build one?