The Sun reports that, yes indeed, we do have someone in Vancouver who will be in charge of the ‘Look of the Games.’ Steve Lange’s job will be to make our city look snazzy in 2010 – apparently using cloth, miles and miles of it.
“We’re planning fence fabric for our venues. It’s an important part of the Winter Games because it adds colour to a bleak or sometimes snow-filled environment.”
Well, okay. I was hoping for something a tad more interesting. Like light.
This summer, Quebec City is celebrating its 400th anniversary, and they’re looking good. On some streets, like Saint Jean, a major shopping arterial in the old city, they’ve added some of these LED lights to the lamp-posts:
LED lights
The lights wash the facades of buildings, giving a continuous and constantly changing light show at night.
This would be just the thing to do along the streets that connect the convention and media centre at the foot of Burrard with the Olympic venues – the stadiums, the village – at False Creek. In fact, the Vancouver Heritage Foundation has been helping to organize discussions among the businesses and property owners along Hastings Street for a lighting program. As the Marine Building already demonstrates, there are abundant opportunities for architectural lighting.
Like the way Quebec City has lit the Price Building – a fabulous deco tower in the old city (and no relation):
Edifice Price
Let’s hope that Vancouver is sufficiently, um, enlightened to take on a project like this.
Looks good. Why don’t you actually send the suggestion to them?
Or rather – send the idea to the City, given that the building that would be lit would not be Games venues. You have to watch out for scope creep – otherwise you’d have the Games organizers repaving all the streets too.
The fence fabric certainly isn’t unique and and is a functional way of enclosing a venue site. You see lots of it on TV at the moment at the Bejing Games. But compared to Expo 86 when fences along Pacific Boulevard were ribbed by plastic, the fabric is a a more eco-friendly option.