ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the disparity between the economic value and use value of some of the buildings around the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, and how television producers worked to present the spectacle of the London Olympics to a global audience. The most prominent architectural landmark in the background of the BBC’s Olympic newscasts was the Orbit, a 114m viewing tower designed by the sculptor Anish Kapoor, engineer Cecil Balmond and architects Ushida Findlay. Its design was the outright winner of a competition to build a specifically ‘iconic’ structure at the heart of the Olympic Park. The location of the Olympic Games served to accelerate the rampant inflation of property values throughout neighbouring communities, including the Carpenters Estate. Despite lengthy waiting lists, councils such as Newham are actively removing residents from their own estates. The campaigners have been asked to move on, and on at least one occasion their stall has been confiscated by the Metropolitan Police.
