Rio de Janeiro’s Favelas : The Cost of the 2016 Olympic Games
ArchDaily announced in October 2009 that Brazil will be hosting the 2016 Olympic Games, in addition to the 2014 World Cup. Just last August, AECOM was awarded the bid for the design of the 2016 Olympic Park in Rio de Janeiro (watch the video here). As preparations for the administrative business of the games seems to be going smoothly, events on the ground say otherwise. The planned Olympic Park will be located on the current site of a favela with a reported population of 4,000 (New York Times: Simon Romero) , known as Vila Autodromo and Riocinha, and those citizens are not satisfied with the prospects of being relocated under the edict of Imminent Domain to satisfy the Olympic Organizing Committee.
More on this story after the break.
Favela Painting
Jeroen Koolhas and Dre Urhahn are two artist from Netherlands who started working together in 2005. In 2006, they started developing the idea of creating community-driven art interventions in Brazil. Their efforts yielded two murals which were painted in Vila Cruzeiro, Rio’s most notorious slum, in collaboration with local youth. After both murals were finished, they started their third stage of their project, ‘O Morro’.
The initial idea of the Favela Painting project was always to paint an entire hillside favela in the center of Rio, visible to all inhabitants and visitors. As the portuguese translation for ‘the hill’; ‘o morro’ is also used as a synonym for slum or favela, the artists chose to use this name for the third stage of the Favela Painting project. ‘O Morro’ started early in 2010 and was recently finished.
You can find more on the projects in their official website and their Facebook Page. See more images of ‘O Morro’ after the break.
