So, the Municipality of Florence decided to restore and update Pier Luigi Nervi’s old city stadium, a masterpiece of twentieth-century architecture, and the competition was won by the Arup studio. To carry out the winning project, however, the worksite will necessarly spread over the whole stadium for two years, barring unforeseen events; therefore in these two years the city’s football team, Fiorentina, should play championships and cups in another venue.
Anyone can easily imagine the problems that will arise from that for audience, athletes, staff, police, and the consequent direct or indirect expenses, the logistical, sporting, administrative troubles, the lengthening of times, the lack of incomes. And even the difficulty in finding a suitable venue, a task so hard that the Municipality is attempting to create or adapt another temporary stadium: an expense that will obviously be borne by public finances, and which difficultly will be accepted by the citizens who pay taxes since the Fiorentina owners some time ago offered to build a new stadium with their own funds. An opportunity inexplicably dropped, it is not clear why.
Could this disaster be avoided?
As far as the worksite is concerned, yes, if a few words had been written in the tender notice, such as:
“Will be a preferential element in the projects evaluation the demonstration that the building activities will not hinder the continuity of use of the stadium, minimizing times and discomforts for users, and optimizing sporting use and seating capacity.”
Therefore, without setting any limitations to the creative freedom of the competitors, a different project could have been developed in the way to avoid problems and expenses if similar few words were written. But they were not.
Ouch ouch ouch.
Views of the Arup project for the Nervi’s stadium in Florence.
Below: a study for the roofing of the Nervi stadium in Florence achievable with partial construction sites (degree thesis by Francesca Mirri and Letizia Di Marzo, 2002).
