Let the games begin!

Olympic Village, Seen from Science World, Vancouver 2010

Pedestrian Bridge, Olympic Village Looking East, Vancouver 2010

Today marks the official opening of the Games of the XXX Olympiad in London. Over 200 nations are expected to participate, with over 10,000 competing athletes. By contrast, 82 countries participated in the XXI Olympic Winter Games in 2010 in Vancouver, with approximately 2,600 athletes taking part.

These two photographs were taken at the time of the Winter Games. The 2010 Athletes’ Village in the heart of Vancouver and the 2012 Olympic Village in East London have much in common. These are no ordinary communities. Normally, we create purpose-built structures, but Olympic city planning is not the norm. Initially these villages would operate as the world’s most exclusive communities for elite athletes from around the globe.

During the 2010 games, the Olympic Village in Vancouver accommodated over 2,800 athletes and officials. The area, now called the Village on False Creek, consists of over 1,000 residential units. Some of the condos are still for sale today.

The London Olympic Village contains 11 residential areas, each made up of five to seven blocks. There are apartments for approximately 17,000 athletes and officials during the 2012 games. After, the village will be transformed into 2,818 housing units in this new residential neighbourhood known as East Village.

To see my photographs of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Village, please visit my website: lesliehossack.com. My images of the London Olympic site will be posted here on Haute Vitrine in the future, along with photographs of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Stadium which I documented in June 2012.

Olympic Villages – Past and Present

Model Building, Millennium Water Presentation Centre, Vancouver 2009

Presentation Suite, Millennium Water Presentation Centre, Vancouver 2009

The two photographs above were taken a year before the opening of the Vancouver Games. The 2010 Athletes’ Village in the heart of Vancouver and the 2012 Olympic Village in East London have much in common. Both projects involved the rejuvenation of largely forgotten urban areas. These are no ordinary communities. Normally, we create purpose-built structures, but Olympic city planning is not the norm. Vancouver and London saw the construction of a group of buildings to serve as transient Athletes’ Villages and, subsequently, ongoing urban communities. Initially these villages would operate as the world’s most exclusive communities for elite athletes from around the globe.

During the 2010 winter games, the Olympic Village in Vancouver accommodated over 2,800 athletes and officials. The area, now called the Village on False Creek, consists of over 1,000 residential units. Some of the condos are still for sale today. These photographs show the sales centre as it looked in 2009.

The London Olympic Village contains 11 residential areas, each made up of five to seven blocks. There are apartments for approximately 17,000 athletes and officials during the 2012 summer games. After, the village will be transformed into 2,818 housing units. This new residential neighbourhood is to be known as East Village.

Jesse Owens’ Room, Meissen House, 1936 Olympic Village

75 years ago this week, Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the Berlin Games.

Jesse Owens’ Room, Meissen House, 1936 Olympic Village, Berlin 2010

During the Berlin Olympics, male competitors were housed in the Olympic Village, located about 14 km west of the Olympic Stadium. There were 140 houses for the athletes, and each house was named after a German city. Jesse Owens stayed in Meissen House. The white bungalows with red tile roofs contained 13 bedrooms, with two athletes per room. According to the official report of the 1936 Games, “the double-bed rooms were spacious, elegantly designed and lavishly decorated and furnished.”

Soon after he moved into the Olympic Village, Jesse Owens was visited by a German shoe manufacturer named Adi Dassler. Owens was persuaded by Dassler to compete wearing the athletic shoes that he was producing in a small company in Bavaria. This was the first sponsorship for an African-American athlete. As a result, Adi Dassler’s business expanded, and he eventually founded Adidas in 1948.

American Olympian Jesse Owens was born James Cleveland Owens, in 1913 in Alabama. The son of a sharecropper and the grandson of a slave, he went on to become the star of the Berlin Games. There he won four gold medals: the 100 metre sprint on August 3^rd; the long jump on August 4^th; the 200 metre sprint on August 5^th; and the 4 x 100 metre relay on August 9^th. Owens’ record of four gold medals at a single Olympic Games stood for almost 50 years, until Carl Lewis won gold medals in the same four events in 1984.

Italian Dining Room, House of Nations, 1936 Olympic Village

The Italian dining room, one of the largest in Berlin’s Olympic Village, catered to the 240 men on the Italian team.

Italian Dining Room, House of Nations, 1936 Olympic Village, Berlin 2010

The 1936 Olympic Village is located about 14km west of the Olympic Stadium, in the German countryside. This is where all the male athletes were housed, while the 328 female competitors were accommodated in Friesen House adjacent to the main stadium. In all, approximately 4,000 athletes from 49 nations took part in the Summer Games.

The village was laid out in the shape of a map of Germany with the House of Nations, or main dining hall, centrally located. This large, circular three-story building contained 38 separate dining rooms. The Italian dining room shown here is one of the two large halls located on the ground floor, and it catered to the 240 men on the Italian team.

The Olympic Village, constructed by the German Army under the direction of Captain Wolfgang Fuerstner, received high praise. However, Captain Fuerstner was demoted because of his Jewish ancestry, and tragically, two days after the Games, he went to his barracks and shot himself.

Following the 1936 Olympics, the village became home to a German infantry school, and the House of Nations was turned into a hospital. After WW II, the Soviet army took over the site and used it until 1992. Following their withdrawal, the village was abandoned. More recently, it has been protected by a preservation order, and DKB (The German Credit Bank) is now overseeing the historic restoration and sustainable development of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Village.

Architect, House of Nations: Georg Steinmetz Date: 1934-1936

Architect, Olympic Village: Werner March Date: 1934-1936