Aquatics Centre
27/07/2011 by Buildington

The Aquatics Centre was supposed to be the bravura architectural performance of the London Games. Costing £269 million, it was to be the icon of the park, with its wave-like roof oversailing not just the three swimming pools inside but projecting outwards to form a gateway to the Olympic Park.

But in fact the centre has had a poor press in design terms, eclipsed by the economical, Meccano-like Olympic Stadium and the Velodrome, praised for its cable-net roof and fast, daylit track. Most of the aesthetic criticism has been of the ugly, temporary stands that project from either side of the building - they do indeed look cheap, tacky, and not in the spirit of the architecture of the permanent pool. These temporary wings will seat 15,000 of the 17,500 swimming spectators during the Games, and everyone from Lord Coe downwards now says that the building will look a lot better "in legacy" than it will during the main event.

Read the full article in the Evening Standard: http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-olympics/article-23972976-at-the-heart-of-the-stingray.do

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