For some time already, exhibitions, lectures, and discussions have been held on the topic of the upcoming World Championship. What is the difference between the exposition of the exhibition at the Museum of Architecture?
The peculiarity of the exhibition is that we talk about stadium architecture as an artistic problem. Stadiums are becoming objects of futuristic interest, and our exhibition is dedicated specifically to the history of ideas.
This is the first exhibition dedicated to the history and modern practices of such construction. It is important for us to show that not only new stadiums are being built in Russia for the World Cup18, we have an almost century-old history of sports construction. The best architects, such as Ladovsky, Kolli, Vlasov, Nikolsky, have been designing stadiums sometimes for more than a decade, and there are such masters even today, for example, Dmitry Bush, Andrey Bokov, and a new generation of specialists grows from under them.
Architectural design methods in Russia are criticized from all sides, but we have a lot to be proud of. Therefore, we did not limit ourselves to the historical part of the exhibition, we wanted to show the continuity of the “big” architecture today.
The exhibition is not the end of the research process; on the contrary, it is an occasion to invite people to discuss the architecture of sports facilities. The stadium architecture is interesting both as a historical phenomenon and as a modern trend. It implements the most advanced technologies: construction, engineering, information, digital, and the stadium is the structure that embodies the avant-garde of modern architecture.
What events planned for the exhibition would you like to highlight?
As part of the exhibition, we have planned an excursion program, including in several foreign languages for guests. The lecture hall of the Museum of Architecture has prepared an extensive educational program, which will be attended by leading experts in the history of sports and architecture. As part of the exhibition, an expanded catalog was published, in which we explore not only the history and current trends in stadium architecture, but also try to look into the future.
What do you think, as a curator of the exhibition, unites the stadiums for the World Cup18, in addition to the requirements of FIFA? What makes them one thing? How are stadiums prepared for the World Cup different from the previous stadiums of the nineties and zero?
Well, let's start with the fact that stadiums were not built in the nineties. The first large stadium in new Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union was built in Moscow in 2002.
A locomotive, a purely football stadium, it set the vector for modern sports construction. Before that, despite the fact that football had already become the main event at the stadium in the 1960s and 1980s, there were no special football stadiums in our country - by inertia they were built with treadmills. So Lokomotiv is already a stadium of a new century, a new time.
And from the Soviet stadiums?
In addition to the already mentioned moment with the lack of specialization of stadiums for a specific sport, there were several other important differences.
In Soviet architecture, the stadium was a completely open structure, there was no canopy over the stands to protect spectators from adverse weather conditions. This element first appeared in the Olympic stadium in Munich in 1972 and became an indispensable part of the space-planning solution. Today the structure of the canopy-shell, its shape, engineering solutions used in the construction are the hallmark of the stadium.
Also, from the very first projects until the era of late modernism, Soviet stadiums did not have a second tier of stands, which was caused by ideological considerations: it was believed that the second tier appeared in the planning decision as a result of the need to seat the poor and the rich, that is, because of the capitalist approach to sports. Therefore, the second tier of stands began to appear in projects only from the 1970s, when ideology gradually disappears from architecture and its spectacular function returns to the stadium.
There is a significant difference in the approach to facade design. If we talk about the era of the avant-garde, then the facades of the stands were designed in a constructivist way, with the identification of support; in the 1930-1950s, a decorative facade appears, which becomes a semantic and ideological element: it was decorated in national motives, so that we could clearly recognize the stadium's belonging to any SSR; in the era of modernism, the facade is again abandoned, structures again become the main element of expressiveness. It is important to understand that then the stadiums did not have club affiliation, although specific teams trained on them - in the design of the facades we see no references to the colors of the national teams, such features could appear only in the era of the market economy, when sports facilities become part of the image, and every sports club strives to emphasize that it has its own special stadium.
Today, the use of a curtain facade is very popular, which hides the structural solution of the stadium, while the facade turns into an independent element that allows you to implement any design solutions.
The stadiums that participate in World Cup18 are not alike, whereas in the past, stadiums built at the same time period were stylistically close to each other. In the 20th century, the variety of types and styles of sports facilities was the result of the development of their typology over time, yet the 12 stadiums participating in the World Cup18 are different in their architectural sum.
We have an example
a stadium in Kaliningrad, in the solution of which a curtain facade of blue and white stripes was applied, referring us to the football club Baltika and to the maritime theme, or an example of a stadium in Saransk, in which the facade seems to be inflatable and consists of multi-colored segments, or, for example, a stadium in Samara, which is a shallow dome, in which structural units of triangular segments are revealed, covering almost the entire stadium, and there is also a stadium in Yekaterinburg, which is an interesting solution in reconstruction, when the new structure is strung on the oval of the old stadium.
These stadiums show different approaches to plastic, which makes each of them unique, and this is the case when it was possible to avoid typology and uniformity in the appearance of large arenas, which are simultaneously preparing for one event.
Over the past 10 years, a boom in the construction of stadiums can be noted in Russia. Do you think this means that stadiums will not be built at all for the next decade?
I do not think so. In order to build stadiums, two factors are needed: the first is the obsolescence of the previous infrastructure, that is, when the construction technology needs to be updated, the second is the emergence of a new reason for such construction. In the 1930s, it happened that the stadiums were built on the site of the avant-garde, or the stadiums of the 1920s were remodeled to change the clothes of a constructivist building into a classical form, the same happened in the post-war period, when the stadiums were supposed to become parade grounds. In the 1960s, football became the most significant kind of collective sports, the institution of “cheering for the team” appeared, and it became necessary to build large arenas specifically for football.
Today the reason is football again, and it is for it that stadiums are being built, but after some time, a certain critical expiration date of the old stadiums will come, and there will be a need for their restructuring. Many of the stadiums that are currently under construction are not intended for participation in the championship: for example,
Dynamo stadium, or a small stadium for 10 thousand spectators in Ramenskoye, a stadium in Grozny - Akhmat-arena, a stadium in Kaspiysk.
Stadiums are being built and renovated. Really large projects were implemented by the World Cup18, but it is important to note that there is also just ordinary construction of stadiums, not to mention the fact that in addition to them there is other sports architecture. Therefore, I think that a decline in interest in the construction of stadiums is possible, and it is absolutely natural, but the development of the topic will not stop, because there is always a demand for sports and we now have masters of designing sports facilities.
Speaking of updating outdated infrastructure. Reconstruction of stadiums has recently become widespread as a separate area of construction. What approaches to reconstruction exist in Europe, which are used in our country?
There are basically three of these approaches. The first one is the most painful when the old stadium is demolished and a new one is erected in its place. Of the world's examples, probably the brightest is
Wembley stadium in London, which was demolished despite its historical value, and in its place a new one was built, of the same architectural quality. This practice is especially common among club stadiums. We also have such examples, - the stadium "St. Petersburg", erected on the site of the stadium-hill named after Kirov. The second approach to reconstruction is associated with the preservation of a significant part of the building - as a rule, the facade is preserved and the internal filling of the structure is completely changed. Here, a striking example is the Moscow Luzhniki, the historical appearance of which, conceived by Vlasov back in 1956, was preserved unchanged, while completely changing the stadium inside. Now Luzhniki is a football stadium that meets all international standards. A similar example is the Maracanã stadium in Brazil, which was also significantly reconstructed for the World Cup, and in which in fact only the skeleton of the old stadium remained, everything inside was updated. The third approach is a permanent renovation of the stadium during operation, when from year to year every year the stadium is being reconstructed all the time on a routine basis - one year the lawn irrigation system is changed, the next year the interiors of the VIP boxes are renewed, the third year the television infrastructure.
There is a fourth approach, but this is an exception to the rule, and not an established practice of reconstruction - when the club moves to a new site, and the old stadium remains an architectural monument and is used as a park-museum. An example is the Olympic stadium in Munich. The Bayern club moved to a new site - the Alliance-Arena, while the old stadium remained as a monument, an architectural park - a place for tourists and an open-air recreational facility. This is a very rare example and this approach is only applied to some really significant structures, and when there is a consensus between builders, developers, a city, a sports club.
