Haute Stadia

   To boost Hadid's Cardiff Opera/Sports Amphitheater
   (recalling Aida at Karnak; The Stones at Altamont; or best
   hair-shaking archi-acoustician, Janni at the Acropolis):


   The Economist, 30 March 1996, pp. 81-82.


   Sports stadiums. The shape of things to come


   "You suddenly come across this building which is much
   bigger than anything else around without having to play it
   up. It's an architectural opportunity in itself There's an
   inevitability about it." James Burland, the stadium
   architect at Arup Associates, is describing the thrill of
   his profession.

   Less inevitable perhaps is the fame these architects now
   enjoy. Once regarded as blights on the city- or
   suburb-scape, their designs are now winning architectural
   awards. In Britain, the McAlpine Stadium in Huddersfield
   (pictured above), designed by the Lobb Partnership, carried
   off the 1995 building of the year prize from the Royal
   Institute of British Architects (RIBA). In America, Oriole
   Park in Baltimore won the American Institute of Architects'
   honour award in 1994; and in 1995 another stadium, the Hong
   Kong National, also designed by HOK Sports Facilities
   Group, won the same prize. These awards mark a reappraisal
   of the value and function of stadiums.

   Comparatively few of those dating from the beginning of
   this century -- so called first-generation stadiums -- have
   survived. Their architectural qualities seldom attracted a
   preservation order. Reminiscing about his club's old soccer
   stadium in north London, one Arsenal fan remembers: "Some
   matches you used to get clouds of smoke come up over the
   pitch from the laundry at the back there. It was just
   terrace, all open terrace. There were just edges of
   concrete with the dust packed down."

   Second-generation stadiums, those built at the start of the
   colour-television age, have necessarily been concerned with
   greater comfort for spectators -- especially in America,
   where the multi-use potential of the domed or coliseum-
   shaped variety of the 1960s and 1970s was supposed to
   guarantee their economic viability. Owners tried everything
   to fill them -- one in the mid-west persuaded 25,000 people
   to turn up to engage in a contest in which they threw paper
   aeroplanes from the stand into a box in the centre of the
   pitch. But now even such landmark examples as Houston
   Astrodome are undergoing a massive overhaul. Others, among
   them Atlanta's coliseum-shaped Fulton County Stadium, await
   demolition.

   The best stadiums now being built, whether elliptical,
   box-shaped, domed, retractable-roofed or cable-and-mast
   structures, address the new demands of clients. Rick de
   Flon, a specialist in the field who at the time was the
   principal of HOK, summarised these demands at the start of
   the decade:

      Today's generation of stadiums are marked by a
      heightened sensitivity to spectators, tenants and
      neighbours. These buildings are meant to function not
      only as optimistic symbols of an entire city's future
      but also as good neighbours in the community. Architects
      must address these seemingly contradictory goals.

   The "structural exhibitionism" of second-generation
   stadiums, epitomised by those used for the Olympics in
   Montreal and Munich, is old hat. Architects now give more
   priority to pleasing the spectators. The dramatic rising
   curves on two sides of the Hong Kong National stadium,
   echoed at Huddersfield, make functional sense because they
   focus the spectators' eyes on to the middle of the pitch.
   The brick facade of the Orioles' stadium celebrates
   baseball traditions and also fits sensitively into the
   urban setting. The Joe Robbie Stadium in Miami has banks of
   seating that can be moved forwards to create a more
   intimate setting and, although it is open to the sky, air
   conditioning is provided for the 10,000 spectators in the
   best seats.

   New high-tech materials enable architects to design
   flexible structures -- the high-tensile canvas canopy
   placed on the roof at Stuttgart for the 1993 World
   Athletics Championships not only provides shelter but, as
   in a wedding marquee, gives off a high-frequency noise that
   creates a crackling atmosphere.

   International architectural firms report that America,
   Europe and Japan are at different stages in the stadium
   cycle. In America the trend to site stadiums in the suburbs
   has reversed itself. Cities see them as economic
   regenerators -- the Orioles' baseball park in Baltimore not
   only fits unobtrusively into the city but was the key
   element in an urban regeneration programme. The Molson
   Centre which opened in Montreal on March 16th and is
   described by Ronald Corey, the owner of the Montreal
   Canadiens as "the best ice hockey arena in the world", is
   even more "centre-ville" than the old Forum it replaced. It
   abuts Canadian Pacific's historic Windsor railway station
   and is sited between two metro stations. Cleveland, Denver
   and other North American cities have similar plans to
   exploit sports to revive their downtown areas.

   In Europe, multi-use stadiums are just catching on, with
   Britain in the van. With pardonable hyperbole, the RIBA
   calls the L20m ($30m) McAlpine Stadium "architecture as
   economic miracle". As well as staging rugby league and
   soccer matches it serves as a venue for concerts starring
   such rock groups as REM. The sight of its cathedral-like
   curves from the railway station is enough by itself to draw
   the crowds.

   In Britain, sport stadiums stand to win money from the
   national lottery, but on the European continent sports are
   being kept on a tight leash. It is ever harder to persuade
   politicians there to commit public money to such
   spectacular stadiums as the turreted San Siro in Milan,
   where improvements completed in 1990 for soccer's World Cup
   cost Italy's taxpayers $600m.

   Architects hope that big new commissions for publicly-
   financed stadium projects will come instead from Japan,
   which presented sleek space-age plans in support of its bid
   to stage the World Cup in 2002. More than $5 billion is
   earmarked to build and improve venues for the event and no
   fewer than 11 of the 15 tournament stadiums would be
   newly-built. The planned improvements include the "virtual
   stadium" -- ie, the conversion of stadiums not being used
   for matches into theatres where people could watch on
   high-quality screens World Cup games being played
   elsewhere. The technology is said to be of such high
   quality that it is almost as good as going to the real
   thing.

   [End]