The Olympic Aquatic Centre at Barra Olympic Park near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which was designed to be a temporary facility so it could be repurposed to benefit other communities, is now an abandoned stadium.
According to a report by News.com.au, Rio’s 2016 organizing committee worked hard to ensure the $50-million facility could be dismantled and used to create two new community pools in nearby areas. The design used mural-styled panels, along with Portuguese-styled tiling, which enclosed the building and displayed the work of Brazilian artist Adriana Varejao’s Celacanto Provoca Maremoto.
The 15,000-seat stadium hosted the swimming and water polo events during the Games and was designed to be esthetically pleasing for tourists and athletes alike. The idea for the facility, which used nomadic architecture techniques, was for it to be a ‘pop-up’ building that used temporary structures that would allow it to be repurposed and avoid it from becoming a white elephant.
According to the report, uncertainty always surrounded the plan to dismantle the facility into two community pools due to the long-term scope of the project compounded by the country’s volatile political situation and ongoing financial struggles.
Wrong! The stadium is being dismantled, the Myrtha Olympic Pool is being reinstalled permanently by the Sugarloaf Mountain. I guess if CNN doesn’t have to fact-check then neither does poolspas.com