Architectural Digest- Best Olympic Architecture

The Best of Olympic Architecture

Like the Games themselves, the most memorable buildings created for the international sporting stage celebrate human achievement

Text by Josephine Minutillo

View Slideshow

102

Tweet

E-Mail

Print

Fireworks explode over the Olympic Stadium during the opening ceremony of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. Photo: © George Tiedemann/GT Images/Corbis

  

Serving not only as stages for athletic dominance, but sometimes—Berlin 1936, Moscow 1980, for example—as backdrops to political ferment, Olympic buildings, 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. AD’s survey of historic Olympic venues spans 17 Games over nine decades, from Los Angeles’ first Summer Olympics in 1932 to London’s third hosting gig in 2012.
View a slide show of the most memorable Olympic architecture.
Check out the striking structures created for this winter's Sochi Games.