Mike Taylor Senior Partner Hopkins Architects

The Olympics Drawn

In November 2012, Dr Joanne O’Hara was selected to be the Rootstein-Hopkins Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, exploring the role of drawing in the planning of London’s 2012 Olympics, working alongside Professor Stephen Farthing. O’Hara describes the work she is doing and the forthcoming exhibition which will present these research findings.

‘The project The Olympics Drawn began in earnest in November 2012, only a few months after the close of both the London Olympic and Paralympic Games. The aim of the project is to chart the role of drawing (of all types) in the preparation, planning and implementation of London 2012.

‘My appointment was made to work with Professor Stephen Farthing on the project for its two year duration: eighteen months in and the initial scoping phase has been done. In this research context we realised pretty early on that a full survey of drawings made for London 2012 would be beyond the scope of the project. We have always aimed to create an interesting, illuminating, and engaging sample or cross-section of drawings from across the board, spanning a multi-disciplinary group of artists, designers and everyone else in between who drew to contribute to the Olympics. By covering a range of topics which are familiar to our audience and to which they will instantly relate, and other more obscure but essential aspects of the production, we hope to bring the scale of London 2012 and the importance and variety of drawing together.

‘The sourcing of these materials has been much harder than we originally expected. Rather than using a central repository, or archive, much of our research has been conducted through individuals themselves and our findings as a result have been dependent on what drawings they held onto. In many cases, frustratingly, we listened to what they had just gotten rid of! It has been fascinating to hear about all levels of the design and production process, from the intern working during the summer of their university holidays, to the design principal through whose office every development of the design of the built environment passed.

‘After a fascinating scoping exercise, talking to people from all sorts of areas of expertise, we are now looking forward to displaying the fruits of our research at Wimbledon Space, 10 October-14 November 2014. We hope to showcase a range of these drawings in the exhibition to bring together a multitude of drawing types, from different disciplines and with varied purposes, produced for the London 2012 Olympics.

‘As we now are bringing together all of the practical elements of the show in time for opening in October, we look forward to welcoming you to the exhibition!’

3 thoughts on “The Olympics Drawn

    1. Laura Lanceley

      The exhibition does not aim to celebrate the achievements of individuals, it explores the nature of drawing and how drawing was used as an enabling force during the preparations for 2012. Our limited funding did not allow us to build as big a sample as we would have ideally liked, so many very important designers and artists are not featured.

      Reply
  1. Claire Post author

    It’s true that this exhibition is not a comprehensive study of all the drawing attached to the 2012 Olympics, but rather a showcase of some of the drawings by a variety of designers, practitioners and professionals who contributed to all aspects of delivery of the Games.

    Reply

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