Olympic pavilion coming to Library Square

More than five years after the hustle and bustle of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games left Salt Lake City, downtown residents and visitors will have a quiet place to reflect on the two weeks when Utah was in the international spotlight.

The City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved plans for the District 4 Olympic Legacy Project, a pavilion on Library Square that designer Norm Judd described as "a place for thought" with "a tranquil feel."

In 2003, the council set aside $700,000 for projects to commemorate the Olympics — $100,000 each for the seven council districts. District 4 covers the city's downtown and central-city neighborhoods.

Judd's design for the downtown pavilion "will really create a nice space and kind of a meditational place," said Councilwoman Nancy Saxton .

The brightly colored pavilion will include plaques with images from the Olympics and information on the Games and the athletes who took part in them. The Center for Documentary Arts, part of the Leonardo museum that will be adjacent to the pavilion, is helping to create those plaques.

The project will be surrounded by benches and will feature shadow play that reaches its climax every year during mid-February — about the same time of year when the Olympics brought the world to Utah.

Copyright issues prevent the word "Olympics" from being used in the design, and the trademark Olympic rings can't be used. Judd has found a creative way around that: Individual rings will be suspended, disconnected, in space, but at noon daily for about a two-week period every February, the rings' shadows will link on the plaza below.

The design will also include a mosaic that will feature many of the people and places involved in the 2002 Games — "kind of a 'Where's Waldo?' approach," Judd said.

"I think this is fantastic and worth the wait," Councilman Dave Buhler said of the plans.

Public services director Rick Graham said Mayor Rocky Anderson has also signed off on the design.

Legacy projects already installed in other districts include improvements to the staircase in Memory Grove between the Capitol Hill and Avenues neighborhoods and a statue at the east-side Anderson-Foothill branch of the Salt Lake City Library depicting some of the 800 "children of light" who participated in the Olympics' opening ceremonies.

A groundbreaking for the District 4 project is planned for early July.

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E-mail: dsmeath@desnews.com