Document Type

Thesis, Senior

Degree

B. ARCH

Date

Spring 2011

Keywords

Olympics, tourism

Language

English

Disciplines

Architecture

Description/Abstract

"The modern Olympic Games exist as one of the most prolific mega-events in global culture, heralding proclamations of peace,pan-unification, and sodality. A mega event can be understood as a high profile, world interest spectacle existing on a short term basis with a series of implications (both beneficial and detrimental) for its host, including socio-economic impacts through generation of tourism and infrastructural advancements, short term/long term employment spikes, real-estate boosts, cost overrun, and an effective branding of the host city with a plethora of potential collective identity issues reliant on themes employed, generation of a legacy/global image and planning concerns, such as housing displacement or dissolution of functional urban fabric for the implantation of foreign infrastructure. Referred to as the “Olympic Effect” (Roche 2000), this series of implications is induced by the complex agendas continually elicited for the Olympics, which often result in equally complex effects. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the first South American city selected to host the Olympic Games, has prospered and developed economic stability over the last decade, boasting the second highest GDP in the continent, and experience, having hosted the 2007 Pan-American Games. However, Rio de Janeiro is at a crucial standpoint as it hosts back to back mega-events (2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games), where acting as a sponsor city could potentially lead to a flourishing or inversely lead to the downfall of this advent city. Rio de Janeiro has now become a host city which is tasked with the mitigation of its characteristically dense fabric, communities, and regional identity and the demands of Olympic infrastructure as well as the legacy and branding of the Olympic Rings."

Additional Information

William Murillo, advised by Vasilena Vassilev and Timothy Stenson.

Download

Included in

Architecture Commons

COinS