Greece is Turning its Olympic Ruins into a Casino

The abandoned Athens Olympic venues are getting a $8.2BN makeover.

Additional footage and imagery courtesy of Arne Müseler, Evanonthegc, the Olympics and the Ellinikon.

Listen to The World's Best Construction Podcast

#construction​ #architecture​ #olympics

Ripping and/or editing this video is illegal and will result in legal action.

© 2023 The B1M Limited

[ThePrisma]

It´s not about some "Olympic Ruins", it´s about the whole former International Airport area. And it´s not just about a Casino. It´s a mega project including parks, public spaces, skyscrapers, residential & office buildings, malls and the coastal front.



Reply

[ai-cvzu]

The architects should've adapted greek's rich architecture. This complex is no different from the other complexes in dubai.

[ndrdst]

A social housing project was denied but a casino was greenlit. Welcome to the real world, Neo.

[alexandroskarkalisss]

I think you should have focused more that this area was the old airport of Athens and not so much about Olympics as there played only a few games also Olympics are not to be blamed for the debt crisis, other factors result to this crisis (i don't say that Olympics hadnt contributed to this crisis but its effect was little)

[gregorymaloukos]

Βeing an amateur scholar of the world of construction and especially tall buildings myself, I am surprised by how inaccurate and misleading a product of one of the leading large construction video producers could be, even for the sake of good intentions, albeit not these being easily detectable in this video. Not by a long shot.

First of all, as many others already mentioned, the video should have focused primarily on the site of the Ellinikon, its history and development from the early 20th century airport, to the early construction works of what is to finally become an intelligent green city adjacent to the largest coastal park in Europe. This narrative might have been more preferable and contextually more accurate, rather than allocating half of the video’s running time into making bitter comments about the Olympic Games, which, despite their over-budgeted completion, have been a big success, and had all the prerequisites for their sites to become landmark venues in the long run, in the same manner that this happened in Barcelona and other Olympic cities.

The video could also, have focused on why Athens doesn't have any skyscrapers, with the tallest building to this day (the Athens Tower) dating back in the 1970s and being only 103 meters / 337 feet in height. Additionally, the video could have focused on why Athens chose a continuous building system, which, combined with a strange middle eastern version of the modernist architectural style, ended up producing a five-story cement soup where tall buildings may have not been allowed, but all the other shortcomings of dense construction, with lack of green spaces for large parts of the city, being there and tantalizing the city in a number of ways, including the creation of the heat island effect as mentioned in the video.

The video should also have not touched upon areas obviously its creators did not know about. Construction for the Olympics was but a small part of the causes that brought Greece to its knees and on the verge of default in the early years of the last decade. This happened mainly due to macroeconomic mismanagement, a sociopolitical crisis, and the deterioration of the country's economic indices due to oversized accrued public debt and lack of prompt response to the problems at hand.

Also, It is worth noting that the Integrated Resort and Casino is just ONE project out of at least a dozen of big projects to be scattered in an area of 650 hectares, and that this probably is going to be the only one of the two large casinos to be operating within the greater Athens area for decades to come. In this regard, the only risk factors for the project now, may be external related to imported price inflation and global instability.

Finally, a useful reminder about the delays that may take place especially during the early stages of a project, is that, Berlin's old Tempelhof airport ended up to NOT being redeveloped at all, but simply to have its idle open spaces available to the public for recreational purposes. Of course, Athens is a different case as it desperately needs to create a new modern urban footprint, and expand its green spaces to the fullest maximum extent, while maintaining a viable management and maintenance scheme for the viable sustainability of these large estates.

Please contact me if you need anything more specific about Athens. In the next few years Athens is bound to become a new case study of urban transformation, especially in the way that it may incorporate tall buildings within its existing urban fabric, it's outskirts, and outside its historical landscape.

[Gk-uggu]

It actually is a private investment by a company specialising in real estate development and belongs to one of the richest greeks out there(Latsis)

[Samuel_J]

It looks incredibly ambitious but the area badly needs revitalising. Also the fact there is already a subway connection to the city centre should help it to grow, rather than having to wait for a connection to be built.

[DimitrisSartzetakis]

It's actually transforming the old airport to a metropolitan park which includes a casino and other things, like a shopping district, a residential skyscraper etc.

[panosgrdev]

this is not the olympic ruins. its the old airport area

[mitsosnera]

Unfortunately this is a video full of inaccuracies.

[elwingy]

Did you even researched the topic? I am astounded you released this video to be honest and makes me extremely skeptical about the rest of your videos uploaded in this channel... if they are researched in the same manner this was, then wow... just... WOW...

[vagbac]

It’s a private investment not a public one. You focused a lot on the Olympics part however the area was mainly used as an airport.

[africa_explained_tv]

Why are people in the comments so condescending towards Greece? It's not like they're the first country to experience economic turmoil and have a casino some years after. Get off your high horses.

[G_Kchrst]

The video has some innacuraces, at least the way it clickbaits the situation because the actual video is mostly pretty accurate. The area that these stadiums were build was the old airport of Greece. After the Olympic Games the area was misused and most of these stadiums were abandoned to ruin. After a lot of debate (and a shady situation considering that the project was given to a known Greek billionaire without a true public tender taking place. Aside from that though, the whole area will be turned into the biggest park in Europe, as the video says and the first true skycrapers of Greece will be build there, which are already sold as real estate. A Casino and a Mall will be build as well. The Old Airport buildings will be maintained and turned into a museum. A Marina and a beach will be made as well.

Also, The Olympic Games are only a part of the whole crisis situation.

[firstsecond]

Some mistakes that You mentioned in the video this place that they build it’s an old airport not an olympic stadium or something. Nevertheless I live really close to the upcoming project and i can clarufy that things go really well according to the plan as an Athens citizent i cant wait to see this becoming reality

[tube_de_siguro]

"Solar panels on every rooftop"... not one rendering showing anything but a tonne of trees and grass everywhere -.-

[tezerd]

a huge casino isn't exactly something I would want in my neighborhood.
I wonder how the Greeks will feel about this.

[kindastolen]

The only issue with building a massive new public space, which they want to be like "Central Park", is that this site is on the very outskirts of the city and so is quite far away from the bulk of the Athens population. It will be more like a fancy country club than a sprawling downtown park

[laslo_ve]

Timing 1:21 shows the picture of Kyiv, not Athens, and there the stadium is still working (not used during the wartime, ofc).

[billy-bo_]

We have not abandoned the sports facilities and the Olympic Village!