No, no one is seriously thinking about demolishing the Montreal Olympic Stadium. Yes, it is an architectural monument and it has become a signature of Montreal. Whatever anyone says, it will remain one of the notable buildings of the second half of the 20th century.e century.
But that’s exactly the problem with the Olympic Stadium. As a monument, it is a great success. As a stadium, as a gathering place for sporting or cultural events, it is a gigantic fiasco.
In short, in this debate, there is too much architecture and not enough stadium.
This stadium has never lived up to its promises. The retractable roof never worked. The acoustics are absolutely terrible. And its main sporting flaw is that the spectators are far too far from the playing surface.
We know that the Stadium is no longer up to standard to host the Soccer World Cup, a National Football League preparatory match or a Taylor Swift tour concert. In short, it is no longer a stadium adapted to the current demands of event promoters and consumers.
It is not for nothing that the two professional teams that could use it – the Alouettes and CF Montreal – have chosen to establish themselves elsewhere.
Even if it is an architectural monument, the Stadium is a technological fiasco. It would be – if it worked! – the only stadium with a retractable roof in the world where the roof extends vertically: from the top of the tower to the bottom. All other retractable roofs are horizontal.
The problem, obviously, is that it worked on the architect’s model, but it was a resounding failure in reality. You could say that this is the original sin of the Stadium. If we want to know more, we can read Judge Malouf’s report, which remains completely current1.
Since then, two roofs have been installed which were unable to withstand bad weather. We won’t make the same mistake a third time.
The next roof of the Stadium will be fixed, but you should know that this will perpetuate one of the great defects of the Stadium: the fact that in the middle of summer, people will be in a closed enclosure. When the Expos wanted to build a stadium downtown, that was one of the reasons why: on a beautiful July evening, the fans didn’t want to go and lock themselves in…
To sell tickets, sports teams rely on something called customer experience. Fans must have a great evening: the venue must be pleasant, the seats must be comfortable, the catering offer must be interesting.
All this to say that if it is absolutely necessary to replace the technical ring on the roof of the Stadium and add a fixed roof, there will be many other expenses to make to bring the Olympic Stadium up to current standards.
This will mean reviewing the facilities for food concessions, a new sound and lighting system, changing the uncomfortable plastic seats, among other things. If we want to attract major events there, these expenses will be essential.
Just changing the technical ring is expected to cost between $750 million and $1 billion. It is not yet clear how much the fixed roof could cost. The last estimate dates from 2017 and we were talking about 250 million. It is obvious that it will be much more.
What’s even more worrying are this week’s announcements. We are going to remove the playing surface to check the condition of the structure and the concrete.
“The exploratory work that will be carried out includes design, engineering and architectural analyses, surveys, corings, inspections, as well as preventive maintenance of the drainage system of the enclosure,” said the press release from the Olympic Park.
We don’t know what we’re going to find, but a search like this doesn’t bode well and the bill risks being even higher.
So, instead of spoon-feeding us bad news, it would be time to have a global vision of what the Stadium upgrade will cost.
Then, we can have a debate which is inevitable: is the Olympic Stadium condemned to be a bottomless pit for taxpayers’ money or will it, one day, be able to start attracting major events again?
However, for this debate to take place, we must move away from the following toxic logic: since the Stadium cost so much, we cannot stop spending a little more. This has been going on for almost 50 years and it no longer makes sense.
Then, we will answer the real question: do we want a living stadium, therefore a collective facility used for sport and culture, or an architectural monument, which we only look at from the outside, because it no longer happens nothing in it?