It’s time to bring back the town planning Olympics

As the Paris #Olympics draws to a close, there has been much discussion over “new sports” such as skateboarding and breaking. But could the contest’s format be applied to the designing of the host #cities themselves? In fact it was, but sadly the practice ended 80 years ago.

In the four summer Olympic games held between 1928 and 1948 gold, silver and bronze medals were awarded in the very un-athletic category of town planning. They were part of a programme of art competitions that the International Olympic Committee put in place in 1912, to reflect the wider agenda of the ancient games. Medals for literature, drama, the arts and music were also up for grabs.

Source: Wikipedia

Although most of projects may initially look architectural in nature, the latter had its own categories, which indicated that town planning (or “master planning” as it might be known today) was seen as a distinct discipline. The medals were awarded for schemes drawn up in the run-up to each games, which may explain why stadia picked up three medals and sports centres six — even if in some cases they were located thousands of miles from the games.

It would be interesting to know which projects might have entered and which would have won the 2024 town planning Olympics. The King’s Cross Development in London, which has been shortlisted for the Stirling Prize, might have been in the running for its master plan, albeit one with little sports content. There is a whole host of US stadiums in the pipeline and India’s 132,000-capacity Narendra Modi stadium might also have made the final.

Sustainable podium

If the town planning Olympics were to be revived, what categories should feature more than a century on from the first wave? First up would be sustainability. Given the huge amount of concrete and associated carbon emissions involved in building facilities, as discussed here recently, construction consortia increasingly focus on showing how they are offsetting those impacts and offering benefits such as net biodiversity gains. Perhaps one set of medals could go toward “the most sustainable sporting event or building”.

Paris has shown how existing buildings and sites can be used to host sporting events to avoid building white elephants. To encourage this, there could be an award for “adapting a historic landmark for athletic purposes while preserving its cultural significance and aesthetic charm”.

Allied to that are the efforts made to ensure that purpose-built facilities do not become redundant once the athletes and spectators have left the arena. Perhaps gold, silver and bronze medals for “city renewal initiatives aimed at creating an area suitable for athletics, but with long-term plans for community access and environmentally responsible development”.

But should the medals be made of metal? A light-hearted piece of analysis by Oxford Economics shows that while gold medals are not made entirely of the precious metal, each has value of more than a $1,000. And mining of gold and other metals raises concerns over environmental sustainability.

So, what should the town planning medals be made of? Medals made of recycled material such as aluminium or acrylic would be suitable for the sustainability title, painted the appropriate colour. Conservation of heritage charm could be reflected by including a wooden relief sculpture of a significant building in the host country. The community-access medals might be a perpetual awards (of wood or recycled material) passed from one winner to the next, with engravings to show the names and dates of all winners added over time.

According to journalism professor Richard Stanton’s book, The Forgotten Olympic Art Competitions, the arts programme was scrapped at the 1952 Helsinki games because of the burden it placed on the local organising committee. Hopefully a new committee, whether Los Angeles 2028 or Brisbane 2032, will decide to revive some non-athletic “sports” for their event to show that the Olympics is more than just running, throwing, swimming … and breaking.