Salt Lake City will begin putting on its Games face over the next couple of months.
The facade of Salt Lake City will be transformed into an array of gigantic Olympic images as 2002 Winter Games organizers unfurl 11 massive banners on downtown office towers and one at the University of Utah between now and mid-January. The building wraps measuring as much 141 feet long and 97 feet wide will depict winter sports athletes including a figure skater, snowboarder and Paralympian.
The first image, a photograph of a downhill skier, began going up at Key Bank on Tuesday.
"It's much like a window-washing operation, where we work down in sections hanging the banners," said Scott Givens, director of Salt Lake Organizing Committee's creative group.
Each of the massive mesh banners, weighing as much as 2,000 pounds and designed to withstand 70 mph winds, will take about four to five days to erect. SLOC intends to install one per week. All will face west and be illuminated at night.
Photos on this large of a scale have never been used in an Olympics before, SLOC President Mitt Romney said.
The super-size pictures are part of SLOC's "look of the Games" project for the Salt Lake Valley. It will also include colorful flags, street banners and pylons listing directional information.
Acclaimed advertising photographer John Huet, who has shot the likes of Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan, took the photos, some of which were unveiled Tuesday. To date, his biggest photos ? both of street basketball players ? were displayed on four-story buildings in Piccadilly Circus and Times Square.
"I think the real opening will be when all of them are up," he said. "If the sky is just right here, it's going to look amazing. And the sky is right here most times."
Huet, of Boston, said he went for a clean and simple look that would blend, not fight, with the landscape. The blue-toned photos depicting ice sports were taken at venues, while the others were studio shots. Huet, a self-described Olympic fanatic who has never photographed the Winter or Summer Games, estimates he used 30 to 50 rolls of film to get the right shot for each banner.
Givens said the 18-month project cost "seven figures" but wouldn't reveal an exact price tag. The International Olympic Committee made much of the city decorations possible with a more than $5 million pledge.
SLOC negotiated agreements with downtown building owners to put up the Olympic banners or no banners at all to keep out what Romney called "ambush marketers" and those who might "promulgate other causes." Owners of buildings with banners were paid a small fee, Givens said.
Football-field-size photos also will be attached to bleachers at Snowbasin Ski Area and Park City Mountain Resort.
Most Olympic ornaments will be put up in the area from 600 South to North Temple and 200 East to 400 East. Olympic Square, an area in the heart of the city that includes the Olympic Medals Plaza, Delta Center and the Salt Palace/Main Media Center, also will be adorned.
In addition, plans call for banners to be hung along 700 East and Foothill Drive, two major thoroughfares to and from I-80 leading to Park City.
SLOC recently obtained permission from the Salt Lake City Council to erect lighted Olympic rings on the foothills overlooking the valley. The five interlocking rings will be 160 feet in diameter.
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