In 2002, it was the artistic backdrop to the Salt Lake City Winter Games Medal Plaza and, as such, one of the symbols of the event. Today, as a new Olympic and Paralympic bid is in the works, theHoberman Arch is getting ready to find the light again, with a refit engaged in the sector of the international airport of the city of Utah (United States).
View of the Hoberman Arch being installed near Salt Lake City International Airport, Utah, USA, in August 2023 (Credits – Salt Lake City International Airport)
More than twenty years have passed, but Salt Lake City remains attached to the memory of the Winter Games, the legacy of which remains particularly perceptible in Utah, whether in terms of the regular use of sports venues or in terms of tourist attendance, which has experienced a definite boom since 2002.
Also, based on most of the sites of this past edition, a project has been in development for several years to envisage a return of the Games to Salt Lake City and its region during the 2030s.
From now on, this return seems almost assured, as the American candidacy has been able to capitalize on its assets to establish itself as an essential partner for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in search of future hosts. In fact, while Sapporo (Japan) was able for a time to constitute a strong rival in the race for the Games, the latter’s setbacks ended up placing Salt Lake City in the position of favorite for obtaining a next deadline for the Winter games.
The city of Utah is thus ideally positioned to win the 2030 or 2034 edition, having the necessary sites, the essential institutional support and, moreover, a largely favorable public opinion.
Aware of these elements, the IOC is also not insensitive to the opening of Salt Lake City which, while showing itself available to take up the torch of the Games from 2030, has shown a certain preference for 2034, the calendar proximity with the Los Angeles 2028 Summer Games could represent a weakness for the implementation of the strategy marketing of the probable Future Host.
View of the renovated Salt Lake City 2002 Winter Games cauldron (Credits – Rice-Eccles Stadium)
Today, alongside the development of its candidacy and the establishment of a calendar with local and national institutional and sports decision-makers, Salt Lake City is also endeavoring to bring to light the constituent elements of the 2002 Games, independently of the work that has been carried out so far on sports equipment.
Among these key elements, the monumental basin placed near the Rice-Eccles Stadium has thus been renovated and repositioned in 2021. In the coming days, another symbol of the 2002 Games will in turn be visible again Salt Lake City residents and tourists.
In fact, long stored in a shed, theHoberman Arch will now deploy in the Salt Lake City International Airport area, approximately 5 kilometers further west of Park Placethe vast car park on which the Place des Médailles for the 2002 Games was temporarily laid out.
That year, the structure nearly 21 meters wide and 11 meters high was set up on the stage where the medal-winning athletes followed each other every evening after the competitions to greet the public present in the stands set up around the square.
Conceived by the inventor and designer Chuck Hobermanthe 14-ton work is characterized by a half-moon shape and above all by an assembly of some 4,000 parts.
At the time of the Games, the imposing structure was used sometimes in its closed configuration, with all the components deployed like a huge curtain through which scenographies and other light projections could be orchestrated, but also in a fully retractable way to allow entry on the stage of the medalists, revealing in the background a basin 3.6 meters high – the “cauldron of heroes” – similar in shape to that of the Rice-Eccles Stadium.
The reappearance of theHoberman Arch occurs almost ten years after its dismantling and the theft of part of its elements.
The new base chosen for its location will provide it with major visibility and will reflect Salt Lake City’s constant ambition to assert itself as an Olympic destination and a stronghold of winter sports in the United States.
For Salt Lake City International Airport – which has scheduled an inauguration this Tuesday, August 29, 2023 – the layout on site of the work is part of a program to modernize the entire airport platform currently being carried out. The main objective of this is to respond to the growing flow of travelers – more than 26 million passengers in 2019 – and to be there, if necessary, for a new edition of the Winter Games.
