The Spartak club stadium is planned to be built in the eastern part of the former Tushino airfield, opposite the Strogino district. To the north of the selected site is Volokolamskoe Highway and just a few hundred meters away is the Volokolanskaya metro station, frozen many years ago and only recently re-included among the infrastructure projects that are planned to be implemented. As for the stadium itself, this object was submitted to the experts already at the “project” stage. Its location, transport scheme and technical parameters had been agreed upon earlier, so the council had to make a verdict mainly on the architectural and planning solution of the sports facility.
It should be emphasized that this stadium is also being built with a view to hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup, so its technical parameters were determined by FIFA requirements. The stadium is designed for 42 thousand spectators and has a traditional rectangular shape with rounded corners. The authors of the project (PC "AIKOM Russia Limited", architect: S. Bailey, R. Feoktistov, M. Yudina, designer V. Goncharov) did not begin to make a sliding ceiling over the field, limiting themselves to traditional canopies over the stands that support metal trusses ending in semicircles. The main functional rooms are located in the western six-story stand (the other three are two-story) - these are the teams' locker rooms, the sports bar and the club's museum. Almost the entire second level is occupied by the press center, designed to cover world-class championships, VIP boxes are located above it, and one level higher are the studios of commentators and television broadcasters.
The main entrance to the territory of the complex is designed from the side of the metro station and is carried out through two entrance groups, from which pedestrian roads lead to the northern and southern lobbies. They go around the second building on the site - a covered training arena for 12 thousand spectators, placed parallel to the stadium and actually cutting it off from the metro. This arena, however, is not included in this project and, possibly, will become the second stage of the stadium construction. To separate the flows of pedestrians and cars when loading a sports facility, the authors proposed to separate them at different levels. And as facade materials, the architects propose to use a translucent membrane, which is so popular all over the world today, onto which any images can be projected. The council was presented with only one solution to the stadium facades - in the form of a shell assembled from many rhombuses, unambiguously reminiscent of the Spartak emblem.
The excessive laconicism of the architectural appearance of the future stadium became the main stumbling block during the discussion of the project at the meeting of the Architectural Council. Among its members were many passionate fans of Spartak, confident that the home stadium of one of the most famous football teams in Russia deserves a much brighter solution. “This grid hides the structures, depersonalizes them,” Yuri Gnedovsky expressed his opinion. Yuri Platonov also supported his colleague: "An attempt to pack an entire complex organism in a shell causes nothing but annoyance." And Alexey Kurennoy made the main emphasis on the urban planning situation: “This territory can be seen from afar, including from the Volokolamskoe highway. From there you can also see the silhouette of the cycle track in Krylatskoye, and the new stadium can and should work with it vis-a-vis. " “Unfortunately, the stadium does not yet have a bright silhouette for this. Even the openwork metal trusses that support the ceilings dissolve in the air and are simply not visible,”says Viktor Logvinov. “This is not Spartak's stadium, it is a very good, but completely faceless stadium that could be built anywhere, but not in Moscow,” Alexey Bavykin summed up the general opinion.
Another wave of criticism from councilors fell on the volume of the training arena, designed in the immediate vicinity of the stadium. As the authors of the project explained, this indoor arena is a multifunctional space where, in addition to training football players, concerts, conferences, exhibitions can be held, that is, events that can breathe life into the complex in those months when there are no sports competitions. That is why the second arena is located closer to the metro. However, the board members were not convinced. The experts unanimously noted the failure of such a decision: by placing the arena in the path of thousands of spectators, the authors actually make crowds and traffic jams inevitable on the territory of the complex. Viktor Logvinov proposed to turn this volume by 90 degrees, and Alexey Kurennoy advised the architects to develop in more detail a program for using the stadium throughout the year - then, perhaps, the second arena will not be needed at all.
The unfinished second phase of the complex was recognized by the Architectural Council as the main mistake in the general plan, but by no means the only one. The pedestrian ring around the head of the arena also seemed ill-conceived to the experts. Yuri Platonov proposed to partially close this zone and place additional sports facilities next to it.
Summing up the results of the discussion, the chief architect of Moscow, Alexander Kuzmin, noted that he expected the pressure of criticism from the fans of Spartak and agreed with it. Kuzmin also reminded the audience that in the first version the stadium had a much more interesting silhouette, but the complex shape had to be abandoned due to the economic crisis. However, the simplification should not be total, and the current solution of the facades does not suit him either. Therefore, the chief architect proposed to approve only the stadium scheme in order to send it for examination, and to discuss the facades separately once again after the authors have developed several new options for their solution. As for the second stage of the complex, Aleksandr Kuzmin completely removed it from the agenda, since it is outside the scope of the discussed project of the Spartak football club stadium.
