Olympic Plaza, Urban park in downtown Calgary, Canada
Olympic Plaza is an urban park in downtown Calgary, Alberta, featuring an outdoor stage, a shallow reflecting pond, and open paved areas with seating throughout. The park sits directly beside Calgary City Hall and is surrounded by office towers and the city's civic centre.
Olympic Plaza was created as the medal ceremony venue for the 1988 Winter Olympics, designed by New York landscape firm Paul Friedberg & Partners with the Gibbs Gage Partnership after a limited competition. Calgarians funded its paving by buying personalized bricks for $19.88. Globe and Mail critic Adele Freedman called it a visual horror in January 1988. Demolition of the original structures began in January 2025, with reopening planned by 2028.
Calgarians funded the plaza's paving by buying personalized bricks for $19.88 as an Olympics fundraiser; before demolition began in 2025 the city invited purchasers to retrieve what bricks could be salvaged. Its position across from City Hall and at the head of Stephen Avenue makes it a regular site for protests, and in 2004 over 30,000 people filled it to celebrate the Flames' Stanley Cup Finals run.
The plaza is easy to reach on foot from most of downtown Calgary, and the City Hall CTrain station is right beside it. In winter, parts of the surface can be slippery, so wearing appropriate footwear makes exploring the area more comfortable.
As a fundraiser for the 1988 Winter Olympics, Calgarians paid $19.88 to buy and personalize a brick paving the plaza. Before demolition began in January 2025, the city invited brick purchasers, or those close to them, to retrieve what bricks could be salvaged.
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