My Escapes Greece Greek Week Athens More of Athens, Deeper The Deserted Athens Olympic Park

The Deserted Athens Olympic Park

5 years after the Athens Summer Olympics, I ventured into the Olympic Park... a vast semi-deserted area.
Daring modern architecture...
Calatrava's cold white steel arches were stretching all around me. In fact, this was my first ever close encounter with the Spanish architect's work.

It was June, 2009. Approximately at the beginning of the Greek economic crisis (officially before it, but it sure felt like right in the middle of it).

I traveled out to Athens' outer area to see the ominous Athens Olympic Park.

It seemed, they couldn't find any better use for this complex... the demand had crashed and the vast Olympic Park was just left there almost like some post-apocalyptic relic.

Santiago de Calatrava's arches are not only found here in Athens... 4 years later I encountered a similar structure, in stunning Valencia...

Besides a few guards and a handful of travelers, there was no-one inside the entire complex. It looked almost totally abandoned.

I was trying to imagine the crowds during the 2004 Summer Olympics...

The architecture all around was nevertheless, impressive.
Light shapes, but somehow it all felt so cold.

There was a lot of minimalism in it and the coldness made the decaying complex seem less friendly.

The Olympic Park is decaying, indeed - that was no exaggeration. And, 5 years after my visit things turned a lot worse.
Nature is regaining control... spots of sand, earth and green plants are spreading.

Check out this article by the Daily Mail

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