How iconic architecture triggered the Greek crisis 1

In 2012, commentators including several economists and Bloomberg Media alleged that the 2004 Athens Games had triggered the Greek debt crisis. While the cost of the Olympics represented only a fraction of Greece’s debt, the Games—and the iconic development, designed by Santiago Calatrava, that hosted them—were built on the foundation of a much larger crisis brewing in the country, in which Wall Street, geopolitics and the 9/11 attacks all played a role. This chapter begins an exploration of the consequences of the iconic architecture industry by detailing the transformation of architecture into a financial medium with the capacity to wreak social destruction of a city on an unprecedented scale. It further reveals how iconic architecture has become a narrator of financial crisis—how national crises in Europe today are screened by the digital imagery of the iconic architecture industry.