It would seem that not long ago Erik van Egeraat solemnly demonstrated to journalists his concept of reconstruction of the stadium of the Moscow stadium "Dynamo", made jointly with Mosproekt-2, Mikhail Posokhin and Alexander Asadov. And heritage defenders criticized the project for leaving only the walls from the 1930s stadium, surrounding them with an impressive glass bubble. Then the "star" architect Egeraat publicly expressed his surprise at the intention of the developer, VTB Arena, to use in further design not only his idea, but also the ideas of two other participants in the competition held in the summer of 2010.
And yesterday the Vedomosti newspaper reported that VTB Arena showed at the main development exhibition MIPIM a slightly different concept of the Dynamo reconstruction. And she named the name of the new architect of the project - according to the newspaper, the American architect David Manika was entrusted with finalizing the concept of Egeraat. In addition, the developer said that in the total investment (at the beginning of 2011 it was about $ 1.4 billion), the cost of the stadium reconstruction will take only about a third - $ 500 million. Previously, the cost of the stadium was not separately announced, it was only about the total volume of investments. I must say that now the price of the stadium fits better with the prices for the construction of facilities of this level: the Arena'92 stadium, which is going to be built in Paris next to the Arch of Defense and which should become the largest in Europe with its 40,000 seats, is estimated at 440 million dollars. The Moscow VTB Arena, designed for 45,000 seats, based on the estimate announced today, will cost about the same - $ 11,000 per seat. However, in the 1990s, stadiums were cheaper: from the minimum $ 3,700 to $ 9,000 per seat; in general, the cost of building stadiums ten years ago ranged from 80 to 200 million dollars.
So, out of 1.5 billion, 500 million will be spent on the reconstruction of the Dynamo stadium, and the remaining billion, that is, two-thirds of all investments, are intended for the construction of various real estate: a hotel (310 rooms), a business center (68,000 sq. M.) and a residential complex (142 250 sq. m.) with three tiers of underground parking. The authors of the projects are TPO "Reserve" and "SPEECH Choban / Kuznetsov". Construction is planned to begin this fall, that is, six months later, to the right of the stadium (to the left is the Petrovsky Palace). The area of the site is 8 hectares, set aside for the construction of real estate, twice the area occupied by the stadium.
New architect to rework Erik Egeraat's concept, David Manica, runs a Kansas-based architecture studio with offices in London and Shanghai. This young architecture studio (founded in 2007, before that Manika worked at the Kansas studio HOK) over the past few years has made a name for itself a large international bureau specializing in high-profile and spectacular public projects, primarily stadiums. Her portfolio loudly states that MANICA architects have already managed to master as much as $ 5 billion. There are indeed a number of spectacular stadiums there. However, looking at the portfolio of David Manick, it is easy to see that the most spectacular pictures are somehow associated with some other architect. Manika reworking, modifying or adapting for further use the projects of the "stars", the images of which then decorate the site of the architect quite well. Take, for example, the stadium in Lusail: its charmingly fitted oval was designed by Norman Foster's bureau for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, and Manika was engaged in the design of sports equipment there (he did a similar job for Foster's bureau earlier, for example, in 1999,designing the rows of seating for the British Wembley Stadium). Another beautiful project from Manik's portfolio, similar to the flying saucer Arena Mercedes Benz in Shanghai, was made by ECADI, while Manika provided him with 'design assistance'. In independent work, David Manica has deployed mainly in China, gaining a foothold there after he ensured the adaptation of the 2008 Olympic arena in Beijing to everyday life.
Defining the style of a young (no more than forty) architect from Kansas is difficult, but most likely it will be something like a wavy-puffed stadium in Guangzhou. Moderately curvilinear. Before us is a successful and ambitious "second hand" architect, energetically exploring the eastern markets. It is difficult to say why it was he who was needed to finalize the concept of Eric van Egeraat. Perhaps because it was impossible for some reason to invite those who had already participated in the competition. It cannot be denied that Manika has extensive experience working with sports facilities. One way or another, but the luminous "bubble", on the whole very similar to the project of Egeraat, already adorns the site of the Kansas bureau. Although Manik's version is really different in something: the outline of the flattened egg has been preserved, but the grid is not made of hexagonal cells, but of rhombuses, and the halves of the sliding roof have also disappeared. It's funny that in their own news in the blog of David Manik's bureau, no predecessor projects are mentioned, although Vedomosti informs us that Manika has been entrusted with the revision.
Erik van Egeraat, an architect from the list of "stars" -international, especially, admittedly, has no luck in the European part of Russia. His designs are moved, canceled, or taken over by other architects with downright manic consistency. Recent history knows the precedent of a lawsuit in Strasbourg won by this architect against Capital Group. However, it should be noted here that in this case the details of the formal agreements between the architect and the developer were not disclosed, and it is likely that the appearance of a new architect, finalizing the concept, does not contradict anything.
Let us remind you that the first reconstruction project of the Dynamo stadium was developed in 2007-2008 by Mosproekt-4 under the direction of architect Dmitry Bush. It was planned to build a smaller stadium inside the old stadium (too extensive for our time), turning its axis 90 degrees, and covering it with a canopy-shell. Next to the Third Ring, as well as now, a "multifunctional complex" was planned (read: real estate with an area of 450,000 square meters) with underground parking, plus two stages of a sports and entertainment complex (40,000 and 45,000 square meters each) - not difficult notice that since then appetites have decreased three times. In early 2010, a new developer, a subsidiary of VTB, held a competition in which three pairs of architectural bureaus participated (in each pair one Russian - one foreign): ABD Architects (Russia) together with Perkins Eastman International (USA), SPEECH together with a German bureau GMP, and Erick van Egeraat Architects in conjunction with workshop №19 of "Mosproekt-2" them. M. V. Posokhina. In June of last year, the victory of the latter was announced. Now investors have written a new line in this story.
