In anticipation of London 2012

London 2012 stadium

For the last two years I’ve been lucky enough to find myself commuting into London past the 2012 Olympics site at Stratford.

Seeing the Olympic Stadium and Zaha Hadid designed Aquatics Centre rising from the dilapidated light industrial units and bomb sites that littered the lower Lea Valley have given me a great sense anticipation for the 2012 Games.

From the train on Friday morning I watched the zig-zag tubular superstructure of the Stadium rising above the yellow mist, and I was struck by how dramatic the repeat triangles of the main frame were in their simplicity.

The contrast with Herzog & de Meuron’s Bird’s Nest Stadium in Bejing could not be more striking, but I feel the design for the London stadium is curiously appropriate. The Bejing Games announced to the world that China was a modern, complex and sophisticated nation. London’s games have been dubbed the austerity games and the main stadium structure, made from recycled gas pipes, reflects these straitened times and yet has a quiet dignity about it.

Neverthless, sripped to its essentials, the exoskeleton follows the modernist maxim ‘form follows function’ and echoes some of Britain’s most iconic architecture.

And maybe it’s appropriate that the stadium should sit back a little and allow the athletes to take centre stage.

2012 – Can’t wait.