Interests at Stake: (Re)planning the City and the Surrounding Area on the Occasion of Mega-Sporting Events: the Case of Cortina 1956

Olympic Games leave behind them legacies with impacts on different ‘levels’ (international, national, local). At these multiple levels correspond the multiplicity of subjects involved, who in turn have different interests. Collaboration/competition dynamics are created between these different subjects and between these different interests. The other element of interest is given by the unique character of planning that Olympic games requires: indeed, it is ‘extraordinary’ planning for a short-term event which however leaves a long-term legacy to the city and the territory. It is also a type of planning that includes an ‘anomalous’ subject, Sport, as embodied by the International and National Olympic Committees. The essay aims to evaluate the impact of all these factors in changing the balance between ‘traditional’ actors of urban planning: the experts, on the one hand, and the administrators, on the other. The article analyzes these variables referring to a particular case study: that of the 1956 Cortina Winter Olympic Games.