ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the representation of Calatrava's design in the popular media, assessing whether the involvement of a global architect in the design of a project of major national significance indicated a shift in contemporary Greece's ideas of nationhood and public culture. Calatrava's commission to design the Athens Olympic Sports Complex(AOSC) was inseparable from local endeavors to articulate a new identity for contemporary Greece. In rhetoric if not in design, Calatrava's work was fully embedded within the cultural politics in Greece, especially as they were formulated during the critical period of Olympic preparations. Various references, from the particular to the universal, were employed to justify Calatrava's design in the face of the demands of various sectors of contemporary Greek public life concerning what constitutes national selfhood'. Calatrava's proposal for the AOSC, like his previous work, was dominated by curvilinear shapes in both the organization of its plan and its architectural morphology.
