Sochi 2014: Fisht Olympic Stadium
The Fisht Olympic Stadium, built for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, was constructed on a greenfield coastal site in the Imeretinsky Valley—an area previously composed of wetlands, dachas, and agricultural plots along the Black Sea.
Designed by
Populous in collaboration with Buro Happold, the stadium broke ground in 2010 and was completed in late 2013, just in time for the Olympic opening ceremony. Its swooping roofline, inspired by snowy peaks and seashells, was prominently featured in a rather abstract artist impression that showcased the stadium gleaming beside landscaped promenades.
In reality, the site required vast earthworks, large-scale displacement, and environmental transformation to host the Olympic Park complex, with aerial imagery showing significant hardscaping and coastal reshaping not depicted in the public visuals.
Sochi 2014, Winter Olympic stadium during construction
Sochi Winter Olympics 2014, what they promised and what they delivered
Pyeongchang 2018: Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium
The Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium, constructed for the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, was a temporary venue built on a greenfield site in the township of Hoenggye, near the Alpensia sports cluster. Designed by
Junglim Architecture, construction began in December 2015 and was completed in September 2017.
The up to 35,000 spectators were left freezing
without roof or heating. As an extreme example of
pop-up architecture, it was used only four times—for the opening and closing ceremonies of both the Olympic and Paralympic Games, before being dismantled in late 2018.
Artist impressions released before the Games included two distinct visuals: one depicting the stadium during its brief period of grandeur, and another showing the landscaped public space that would be remediated post-demolition.
This dual-rendering approach marked a rare acknowledgement of a venue’s planned impermanence, a strategy aimed at avoiding the white elephant syndrome that has plagued past Olympic host cities. While the temporary design successfully limited long-term underuse, it also highlighted how even “honest” renderings can idealise outcomes, depicting a seamless transition to legacy uses that, in practice, are often delayed, altered, or fall short of community expectations.
Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics Stadium during construction
Pyeongchang Olympics 2018, what they promised and what they delivered
Pyeongchang Winter Olympics 2018, what they promised and what they delivered
Olympic bedazzlement is not just a tactic, it is a pattern.
The stadium render for Victoria Park is not an outlier, it belongs to a lineage of Olympic visual seduction. Across more than three decades of Olympic history, the pattern is consistent: artist impressions are among the earliest and most persuasive tools used to cultivate public support for mega sporting venues and infrastructure.
From Beijing’s Bird’s Nest to London’s adaptable stadium and Pyeongchang’s pop-up architecture, each render offered an idealised vision, sunny skies, ample trees, smiling crowds, a seamless integration with nature and city life. In practice, each required extensive demolition, excavation, or long-term reconfiguration.
This recurring gap between future urban imaginaries and built reality is what we term
bedazzlement: the strategic use of seductive architectural imagery to present utopian urban futures as a “done deal”, while suppressing public scrutiny, alternative designs, or meaningful community engagement. It is a visual form of greenwashing, where the illusion of sustainability is sustained through compelling aesthetics, not factual substance.
Brisbane’s choice to build an entirely new stadium on greenfield parkland sets it apart from global best practice
Brisbane’s choice to build an entirely new stadium on greenfield parkland sets it apart from global best practice. All but six other host cities used already existing stadiums that either remained unchanged or were upgraded.
Milan, hosting the 2026 Winter Olympics, will celebrate the centenary of San Siro Stadium, a venue built in 1926. Before that, Turin’s Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino was already 73 years old when it hosted the 2006 Games. In Rio 2016, the iconic Maracanã Stadium was 66 years old at the time. Brisbane, by contrast, is opting for a high-carbon, high-cost new build in one of its last remaining inner-city green lungs.
This scenario is far from hypothetical. The Winter Olympic Games 2014 in Sochi, Russia, irreversibly
damaged the
Western Caucasus, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Despite its original
pledge to reduce pollutants by 80 per cent, Rio 2016
failed to clean up Guanabara Bay, and also caused large-scale
deforestation and wetland destruction.
Fragile alpine forests were
cleared for the Pyeongchang 2018 ski slopes. Brisbane now risks joining that ignoble list.
Premier Crisafulli regularly repeats his new Olympic slogan: “Now, let’s get on with it.” But on with what, exactly?
A stadium imposed on heritage-listed parkland, justified by a carefully curated artist impression that omits scale, clearance zones, topographic reality and carbon cost?
In a move that should concern every Queenslander, the
Premier has now introduced legislation to Parliament that will override 15 state planning laws to fast-track Olympic venue delivery—including the Environmental Protection Act, the Planning Act, the Queensland Heritage Act, the Local Government Act, and the Nature Conservation Act. If we allow ourselves to be bedazzled today, Victoria Park in 2032 may look more like a heat-blistered concrete pan than the leafy sanctuary promised. Brisbane still has time to choose which picture becomes real.
A utopian image does not guarantee a sustainable legacy. The Victoria Park stadium render pretends there is no alternative. But multiple lower-impact alternatives exist such as nearby brownfield sites, and they do deserve proper assessment: Northshore Hamilton, Woolloongabba, Albion Park, Doomben, and Mayne Yard, all of which are previously developed sites with far fewer environmental trade-offs and cultural impacts than building on inner-city parkland. Reusing or upgrading existing venues, as most recent Olympic host cities have done, would also offer a significantly lower-carbon, lower-cost path forward.
Communities seeking to preserve Victoria Park are using the time they have left to resist the sleight-of-hand that is Olympic bedazzlement. Community groups such as
Save Victoria Park have seen through the smoke and mirrors of these seductive visuals and imagine an urban future grounded in honesty, respect, and genuine sustainability. They argue Brisbane does not need another render. It needs a reckoning, with its climate obligations, with its cultural responsibilities, and with the power of visual persuasion to obscure inconvenient truths.
The stadium render for Victoria Park is not an outlier, it belongs to a lineage of Olympic visual seduction. Behind the glossy architectural visuals lies a concrete reality that the public cannot afford to ignore.
thefifthestate.com.au
