Serving not only as stages for athletic dominance but sometimes—Berlin 1936, Moscow 1980, for example—as backdrops to political ferment, Olympic stadiums, parks, and monuments carry the weight of more than just the bricks and mortar (and steel and glass and high-tech plastic) that compose them. Olympic stadiums are symbols of a host country’s identity and an indicator of its global significance, both through design and the world-class architects its government can afford to hire to create them. Even in some early Olympic Games, from 1912 to 1948, architects competed alongside other creatives to win gold, silver, or bronze for their sport-related work.
Even without the promise of an Olympic medal, each host city pulls out all the stops to improve its urban fabric and impress other nations while it commands attention on a global sporting stage. For this summer’s Paris 2024 Games, the city has both renovated and built new sport venues in the city and its suburbs and kicked off a massive expansion of its metro system (whose fares will double in price for the duration of the Olympics events).
Because it is often a matter of pride, some of the world’s best architecture has been built specifically for the Olympic Games. AD’s survey of historic Olympic venues spans 20 Games over ten decades, from Los Angeles’s first Summer Olympics in 1932 to London’s third hosting gig in 2012 to Paris’s forthcoming Games this summer.
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Olympic Stadium, Athens, 2004
The birthplace of the Olympics, Athens had not hosted a modern Games for more than a century (since 1896) when it finally got another shot in 2004. Plagued by rumors that the venues would not be completed in time, the Games ultimately went off without a hitch. The Greek Ministry of Culture called on Santiago Calatrava to transform an existing 75,000-seat open-air stadium for the opening and closing ceremonies. The Spanish architect left his signature on the 1982 structure with the addition of a striking roof composed of twin tubular steel arches that span 997 feet.
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Montjuïc Communications Tower, Barcelona, 1992
Few cities have taken as full advantage of their moment in the Olympic spotlight as Barcelona did in 1992. The Catalan capital reinvented itself for the occasion, overhauling its infrastructure and adding a spectacular array of new architecture along the waterfront and on Montjuïc, the imposing hill overlooking the harbor that hosted the major sports venues for the Games. Stars such as Frank Gehry, Norman Foster, and Arata Isozaki were brought in, while the work of then little-known local architects like Enric Miralles was introduced on the world stage. Santiago Calatrava designed the 446-foot-high steel Communications Tower to resemble an athlete carrying the Olympic torch.
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Ski Jump Towers at Canada Olympic Park, Calgary, 1988
It was the “Battle of the Brians”—Orser and Boitano—on the ice, but the slopes at the 1988 Winter Games in Calgary also had their stars. The charismatic Alberto Tomba led the slalom, while “Flying Finn” Matti Nykänen won three gold medals on the ski jumps at Olympic Park, which has become a popular ski resort. The park features seven ski jumps and the 295-foot-tall ski jump tower, now an iconic part of the region’s skyline.
Photo: Getty Images/Okku Kemppainen
Olympic Stadium and Tower, Helsinki, 1952
Though Finland typically dominates winter sports, it played host to the Summer Olympics in 1952. The Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, with its striking 238-foot-tall tower, was actually designed decades earlier by architects Yrjö Lindegren and Toivo Jäntti and completed in 1938. A huge structure, it accommodated 70,000 spectators during opening ceremonies.
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Aquatics Centre, London, 2012
Inspired by the fluid geometry of water in motion, Zaha Hadid’s design for the Aquatics Centre for the 2012 London Olympics features a 525-foot-long undulating roof. The temporary seating stands on either side of the sinuous structure have now been removed and replaced by permanent floor-to-ceiling glazing running the length of the building. Prior to her passing, Hadid was recruited to create an even larger Olympic venue—the 80,000-seat Japan National Stadium for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo—but ultimately Japanese architect Kengo Kuma designed and completed the project, which now hosts 68,000 spectators.
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Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow, 1980
Much of the world did not get to experience Russia’s first stint hosting the Olympics. The 1980 Summer Games in Moscow are perhaps best remembered for the US-led boycott that reduced the number of participating nations to 80, the lowest since 1956. Still, over 5,000 athletes competed, many within Luzhniki Stadium, the largest sports complex in the country. Built in 1956 when it was known as the Central Lenin Stadium, the nearly 80,000-capacity arena hosted the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
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Old Wembley Stadium, London, 1948
London was one of the first cities to host a modern Olympics back in 1908. Forty years later it hosted again, holding events in and around Wembley Stadium. Designed as both proud monument to, and functional arena for, the British Empire Exhibition of 1924, the stadium featured twin white concrete towers. Later known as the “Church of Football” to English soccer fans, the stadium and its famous towers were reduced to rubble in 2003 to make way for a new venue.
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Olympic Stadium, Sydney, 2000
Often described as the best in modern Olympic history, the Sydney 2000 Games also featured the largest-capacity Olympic stadium ever built. Designed by Populous—architects of Fisht Olympic Stadium for the current Winter Games in Sochi—ANZ Stadium accommodated 118,000 spectators during the events. It now operates as a more sustainable venue of 85,000 seats. (ANZ was the first stadium of this scale specifically designed to be reconfigured after the Games.)
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Olympic Park, Munich, 1972
German architect/engineer Frei Otto came to prominence by creating temporary tent structures, including one for the West German Pavilion at the Montreal World Exposition of 1967. The largest and most enduring, designed together with Günter Behnisch, was made for the 1972 Munich Games. The sweeping tensile structure covers Olympic Park and has become an attraction in itself. While the site continues to host sporting events and concerts, it also offers guided roof climbs for adventurous visitors.
Photo: Getty Images/Andreas Bauer
Olympic Stadium, Berlin, 1936
These were the Olympic Games of Adolf Hitler. But also of Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals. Designed by Werner March, the Berlin Olympic Stadium embodies the severe austerity of Nazi-era architecture, setting the scene for Leni Riefenstahl’s documentary Olympia. One of the few large structures in the city to survive the war, it has continued to host sporting events, most notably the dramatic final match of the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
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Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles, 1932 and 1984
During the financial crisis of the late 1970s, Los Angeles used existing buildings in its winning bid to host the 1984 Summer Olympics, most notably the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Designed by father-and-son architectural team John and Donald Parkinson and built in 1923, the Coliseum is the only facility in the world to play host to two Olympiads (X and XXIII), two Super Bowls (I and VII), and one World Series (1959).
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Olympic Stadium (Estadio Olímpico Universitario), Mexico City, 1968
Mexico City was considered a controversial choice to host the 1968 Olympic Games because of the city’s high altitude, but the thin air proved an advantage in some events, such as short-distance running, jumping, and throwing, all of which were held in the Estadio Olímpico Universitario. Architects Augusto Pérez Palacios, Raúl Salinas, and Jorge Bravo adopted a system of construction based on stepped terraces made from local volcanic stone, which also clads the exterior of the 1952 building. A mural by Diego Rivera adorns the stadium’s side.
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Olympic Stadium, Montreal, 1976
Designed by French architect Roger Taillibert, Montreal’s Olympic Stadium was besieged with problems during construction, including cost overruns and structural issues. It has a 556-foot-tall slanted tower that supports a retractable roof, neither of which was completed in time for the 1976 Games, where Nadia Comăneci famously scored the first perfect 10 in women’s gymnastics and Caitlyn Jenner took home the gold in the decathlon.
Thomas De Wever
Olympic Stadium and Park, Seoul, 1988
Much as the 1964 Tokyo Olympics helped usher in a new postwar era for Japan, the 1988 Seoul Games—the second Games held in Asia—did the same for a newly industrialized South Korea. They featured big performances by Greg Louganis and Janet Evans, but also big controversy, as Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson became the first world-famous athlete to be disqualified for testing positive for steroids. The centerpiece of the Jamsil Sports Complex, the dynamically curved Seoul Olympic Stadium was designed by Japanese-trained architect Kim Swoo Geun to evoke the profile of a Joseon Dynasty porcelain vase.
Hosting the Winter Olympics in 2006 offered Turin, an Italian city of one million, an opportunity to rethink and revitalize major sections of its metropolitan area. One of the most enduring visual legacies of that effort is the 226-foot-tall red arch designed by Hugh Dutton over a pedestrian bridge connecting the Olympic Village to adjacent competition areas.
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Yoyogi National Gymnasium, Tokyo, 1964
Pritzker Prize winner Kenzo Tange designed spectacular twin stadia for the 1964 Games in Tokyo—the first Games held in Asia. The basketball arena and larger elliptical swimming center have sweeping catenary steel roofs hung from concrete ring beams that also support upper seating tiers. In Tokyo’s winning bid for the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the highly adaptable design served as the venue for badminton, handball, and wheelchair rugby.
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Beijing National Stadium, Beijing, 2008
Herzog & de Meuron and Chinese architect Li Xinggang, along with Ai Weiwei, designed Beijing’s iconic “bird’s nest” stadium for the 2008 Olympics. The stadium is surrounded by an architectural basketweave of steel columns and trusses, which supports its roof over a concrete bowl with seating for 91,000 people. The building’s design is highly technical and creates a bold visual statement. It was reused for opening and closing ceremonies when the city hosted the 2022 Winter Olympics.
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Palazzetto dello Sport, Rome, 1960
Italian architect Annibale Vitellozzi designed this arena for the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome—the first to include Paralympic Games—with the help of Pier Luigi Nervi’s innovative engineering feat: thin-shell reinforced concrete. Here, the advanced building technology is used to create a dome supported by Y-shaped flying buttresses, giving the structure a sort of jellyfish shape. Because many of the concrete pieces were prefabricated, a revolution at the time, the arena took only 40 days to construct. Smaller in scale than many Olympic sporting venues, the Palazzetto dello Sport was originally built to host basketball games and has since been used for volleyball matches too.
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Japan National Stadium, Tokyo, 2020
The environmentally-conscious design of this innovative stadium signaled a new trend for the future of Olympic architecture when it was completed in 2019 by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma with Taisei Corporation and Azusa Sekkei Co. Built to host track-and-field events during the 2020 Tokyo Games, the 68,000-seat, oval-shaped Japan National Stadium features cedar-and-pine cladding that helps to self-shade and a steel roof supported by cedar and larch trusses. The wood for the façade was sourced locally in Japan. Though the stadium’s main structure is made with the typical concrete and steel, its experimentation with timber (a lower carbon material) as a structural building element for a sports facility creates an inherently eco-friendlier design. This year, the low carbon, biomaterial-forward Aquatics Centre designed by VenhoevenCS and Ateliers 2/3/4 for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games continues in its footsteps and improves on them, making sustainable architecture a new point of national pride.
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Adidas Arena, Paris, 2024
The Adidas Arena is located in Porte de la Chapelle, a disadvantaged district of the city that for years has been known as a center for drug activity as well as a hub for formal and informal refugee camps. These factors led French officials to select the neighborhood as one of the few new build sites for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. Designed by two Paris-based architecture firms, the sports and entertainment complex is constructed mostly of biomaterials such as wood and low-carbon concrete, and clad in environmentally-friendly recycled aluminum. After the Olympics end on August 11, the arena will continue to be home to the Paris Basketball club, as well as feature live performances, concerts, and space for two gymnasiums.
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Thomas De Wever
Thomas De Wever
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