The Olympic Aquatics Stadium will host the swimming competitions and water polo finals, and has two swimming pools: one for the events and the other for warming up. The structure is temporary and will be dismantled after the Games.
It is not the first time that an architectural project is eclipsed by the intervention on the facade of a guest artist, as Adriana Varejão (see Olafur Eliasson and Harpa Concert Hall) and it has happened again with the modest temporary project for Stadium Olympic aquatic, which do not even appear among the major interventions by architects gmp Architekten with larger interventions in these Olympic games.

The process up to the current outcome began when Culture director of the Rio Olympics Carla Camurati was struck by Varejão’s installation Celacanto Provoca Maremoto (2004–2008) at the esteemed Brazilian museum Centro de Arte Contemporânea Inhotim in Minas Gerais, and realized its imagery and themes were a natural fit for the aquatics venue.

For the mural at Inhotim she created an abstract ocean scene by mixing tiles from different compositions. The artist said the title of the work, Celacanto Provoca Maremoto, translates to “coelacanth causes a seaquake.” The coelacanth is a very rare species of fish, thought to be extinct until modern times.

The work is part of Varejão’s ongoing explorations into the traditions of azulejos, hand-painted tiles in Brazil that trace back to when the Portuguese imported Baroque tiles, which were inspired by the cobalt-blue ceramics that Europeans encountered in China. For decades, Varejão has been creating paintings and installations that investigate this history, often mimicking cracked, broken tiles, which not only reference the Brazilian tradition, but also Chinese Song dynasty ceramics.

For the Olympics, Varejão has reconfigured the work to fit the stadium; the tiles were photographed, enlarged, and printed on plastic canvas, which will be draped across the exterior walls.
 

Description of project by gmp Architekten

A temporary 18,000 seat arena was created for hosting the Olympics and Paralympics swimming and aquactics polo competitions. The temporary building structures of stands and roof, conceived for later reutilization, were designed to allow simple disassembling, transportation and later assembling operation.

The roof is comprised by identical steel trusses that longitudinally cross the 100 m span and valley cables that grant to the PVC membrane the required shape and structural stability. The façade made out of steel vertically disposed tubes form an harmonic arrangement with the roof, granting to the arena a high architectural and engineering standard, compatible to an Olympic venue.

Read more
Read less

More information

Label
Architecture
Text

Architect.- gmp Architekten von Gerkan, Marg und Partner.

+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Collaborators
Text

Treatment for the aquatics center.- Adriana Varejão. Cooperation.- Lumens, Sustentec und AECOM (Vorentwurf).

+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Client
Text

Prefeitura Municipal do Rio de Janeiro.

+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Contractor
Text

Engetecnica.

+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Label
Dimensions
Text

GFA.- 36,887 sqm
Length.- 136.8 m
Height.- 31.65 m
Roof area.- 13,912 sqm
Ground area.- 35,898 sqm
Width.- 101.7 m
Facade area.- 15,097 sqm
Seats.- 18,000

+ + copy Created with Sketch.
- + copy Created with Sketch.
Adriana Varejao. Brazilian, b. 1964, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She’s practice centers on the use of ceramic tiles, both depicted in paint and as literal components of the work. This geometric tile patterning is juxtaposed with a flesh-like interior in the sculptural “Jerked-beef ruin” series (2000-04), in which the tile is ruptured to expose bloody viscera beneath. Varejão has cited a range of inspirations including Baroqueart, architectural ruins, nature, science, theater, and colonial history, alluding to her native Brazil’s colonization by featuring the blue and white azulejos tiles brought by the Portuguese colonists. With meticulous attention to craft, Varejão’s practice stages the convergence of binaries, between geometric and organic, mesmerizing and repulsive.
Read more

gmp Architekten. gmp Architekten von Gerkan, Marg und Partner (abbreviated gmp Architeckten or gmp) is a German Architecture practice based in Hamburg and with offices in Asia and other regions. It was founded in 1965 by the architects Meinhard von Gerkan and Volkwin Marg. In the first two years of the Meinhard von Gerkan and Marg Volkwin association, they won eight architectural competitions already, including the design for the Berlin Tegel Airport.

Meinhard von Gerkan. Born in Riga, Latvia in 1935, Meinhard von Gerkan is an architect at the Technical University of Braunschweig, where he graduated in 1964. The following year, he teamed up with Volkwin Marg, a partnership which still exists today under the name "von Gerkan, Marg und Partner "(GMP), and with a base in Hamburg.

In 1974 Gerkan was appointed to a professorship at the Technical University of Braunschweig, where he directed 2002 the Institute of Architectural Design (Department of Architecture and Design A).
Meinhard von Gerkan is also a member of the Free Academy of Arts Hamburg.

Marg Volkwin. Marg Volkwin was born in 1936 in Königsberg, East Prussia. From 1958 to 1964 he studied Architecture in Berlin at the Technical University of Braunschweig, where he graduated in 1965, the year in which he also founded the architectural firm Gerkan, Marg and Partners (GMP) together with Meinhard von Gerkan.

In 1972 he was appointed as a member of the Free Academy of Arts Hamburg and in 1974, a member of the German Academy for Urban and Regional Planning. From 1975 to 1983 he was the first vice president, then (1979) President of the Federal German Architects (BDA). In 1986 he received a professorship at the RWTH Aachen for city planning and teaching work.

Since 2007 Marg is director of the Academy of Structures (AAC), which he founded along with von Gerkan through the GMP Foundation. Volkwin Marg is a member of the advisory board of the Federal Cultural Foundation Construction.

In 2009 he was awarded the Cross of Merit 1st Class of the Federal Republic of Germany ausgezeichnet. In 2010 he became a member of the Academy of Arts in Berlin.

In 2012 he received an honorary doctorate in the Department of Architecture, awarded by the Academic Council of the University of Hamburg HafenCity.

Together, Meinhard von Gerkan and Marg Volkwin have won more than 490 awards in national and international contests, among which more than 290 are first prizes.

Read more
Published on: August 8, 2016
Cite: "Adriana Varejão’s treatment for the Olympic Aquatics Stadium by GMP Architekten" METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/adriana-varejaos-treatment-olympic-aquatics-stadium-gmp-architekten> ISSN 1139-6415
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...