STADIA: STADIO OLIMPICO, ROME

The received wisdom is that the 1990 World Cup lumbered Italy a whole bunch of white elephants: ill-conceived stadiums that prioritised form over function, that were badly built, badly designed and then badly maintained. There is some truth in this, but it is a truth that applies to anything and everything: shopping malls, office blocks, warehouses, schools, leisure centres, airports, train stations, bus stations, parks, carparks, highways, bridges, public housing, mansions, palaces. The built environment can date very quickly, can fall apart very quickly.

In fact, the fate that has befallen the twelve venues that were selected for Italia ’90 is not in any way equal. Two of the stadia no longer exist: the Stadio Delle Alpi in Turin and the Stadio Sant'Elia in Cagliari. Stadio Friuli in Udine has been remodelled – only the tribuna, which predated the World Cup, survives – and Stadio Artemio Franchi in Florence is undergoing a similar process. The condition of the remaining eight is various. Bari’s San Nicola was in a fairly bad way but looks to have been smartened up a bit. The same can be said for Stadio Diego Armando Maradona, but only of its interior – its exterior is a mess. Bologna and Palermo seem to be doing ok, at least from afar, while Genoa and Verona look to be on a gradual downward trajectory. The only grounds that have retained their character, while still being regarded as functioning, international venues, are Milan’s San Siro and Rome’s Stadio Olimpico. Some will complain about the condition of the San Siro but what they’re really griping about is the lack of corporate facilities; its general condition is actually rather good. The condition of the Stadio Olimpico, on the other hand, is very good.

The Stadio Olimpico was opened in 1953, though it was conceived of in 1926. Originally known as Stadio dei Cipressi (Stadium of the Cypress Trees), it was to be part of a larger sports’ complex commissioned by the Opera Nazionale Balilla (ONB), named the Foro Mussolini. A Fascist initiative, in other words. The architect Enrico Del Debbio was given the task of realising the project, with mixed results. The Stadio dei Marmi, which is a training facility rather than an actual stadium, appears as some sort of neoclassical joke. The Palazzo della Farnesina, however (which was not part of the same project but nonetheless overlooked it), exhibits signs of Italian Rationalism. This was Fascist architecture all over, a collusion between the modern and the ancient. In any case, Del Debbio never got to finish the job; ust a single tier of it, built into the ground. Not what modern stadia – especially not totalitarian stadia – were made of.

Stadio dei Cipressi was located upon an area of marshland at the bottom of Monte Mario, which despite being the highest of all the hills in Rome is not one of the seven that the city is known for. When it was decided to enlarge the ground in 1937, with an eye on hosting the 1940 Summer Olympics, Debbio’s replacement, Luigi Moretti, simply built into the hill itself, utilising the displaced soil to raise to level the playing field by four metres. The sides of the stadium that didn’t lean into Monte Mario were built of concrete.

There would be no Summer Olympics in 1940, and the stadium as it was saw little in the way of sporting action. Instead it welcomed Adolf Hitler on his state visit to Rome in 1938, staged a military celebration of the Tripartite Pact in 1941, and was used as a storage facility by Allied troops in 1944. After the war, control of the stadium was handed over to the Italian National Olympic Committee (CONI), suggesting that the idea of accommodating the Olympic Games and never gone away. In 1951, work began on redeveloping the site, headed by the engineer Carlo Roccatelli and architect Cesare Valle. (Annibale Vitellozzi, who had designed Roma Termini railway station, became involved after would Roccatelli died in 1951.)

Central to the refurbishment was doing away with the structure’s reliance on Monte Mario. This part of the stadium was completely demolished, the hill excavated and a continuous tier built in its place, clad in travertine and enveloping what remained of the old one. The pitch was countersunk by 4.5 metres to limit the height of the stadium outside to 13 metres – it was felt that the structure shouldn’t dominate the buildings that surrounded it, nor compete with the hill. The Stadio dei Centomila (Stadium of the 100,000), as it was provisionally called, actually had an official capacity of 65,000, but considering how few seats there were it could easily hold more (at least 80,000 were present for the Italy national team’s inaugural match against Hungary, for example). In 1960, the Olympic Games would indeed be held in Rome, by which time the stadium was being referred to as the Stadio Olimpico. It would be another 30 years before the ground changed in any overtly recognisable way.

 

If the World Cup final was to be played in Rome then it needed a stadium worthy of the occasion, which the Stadio Olimpico wasn't. A number of options were considered: build a new national stadium in the EUR district south-west of the capital, expand the Stadio Flaminio just down the road from the Stadio Olimpico, or renovate the Stadio Olimpico. Enlarging Stadio Flaminio was quickly dismissed due to a lack of surrounding space, while building a new stadium from scratch was deemed too costly and too time-consuming. The Stadio Olimpico, then, would have to do.

The problem was the criteria in place for hosting a world cup final, which included an all-seated capacity of at least 80,000 with at least two-thirds of that to be undercover. The Stadia Olimpico at that time had room for approximately 70,000 and no roof to speak of. Moreover, the stadium lacked a strong visual identity, which might not have mattered but probably did, given what was happening in Milan, Genoa, Bari, Turin.

The solutions to the first two of these problems were relatively simple: knock down and rebuild the curved ends to bring them closer to the action, extend the Tever and Monte Mario grandstands to increase capacity, and put a roof over it all. In doing this, the curvature of the end terraces, which stood some way back from the goal-line, was reduced, bringing them 10 metres closer to the field of play. These new curvas would be 80 rows deep, meaning that the tribunes had to be extended by 20 rows so as to meet up with them at the top.

Once work began, it became apparent that the Monte Mario’s foundations were in no fit state to sustain the planned extension, and had to be demolished. It's replacement was rebuilt in a manner that more gracefully followed the sweep of the new north and south curves, without the jarring intersections that would inflict the tribuna opposite. (It also had the unintended but beneficial consequence of freeing up room for various service facilities that would have otherwise been housed in temporary, external structures.) Meanwhile, aluminium terraces supported upon lamellar wood beams were appended to the back of the Tever – as had been planned for the Monte Mario. The original façade was preserved, bookended by two cylindrical stairwells wrapped around columns that also upheld the roof, the only visible trace of the original construction.

The roof itself was more problematic. The initial design called for eight reinforced concrete towers with the roof suspended from it, but the Ministry of Cultural Heritage objected, successfully, on the grounds that it would negatively impact the view towards Monte Mario. Its replacement did away with the towers, thus maintaining a much lower profile, and was arguably the more attractive solution anyway. Comprised of a reticular metal frame with a triangular cross-section, it rested upon 16 columns encircling the stadium’s perimeter, four of them made of concrete – incorporating the aforementioned stairwells – the rest steel. From the frame were attached 78 52-metre long galvanised steel cables, rather like the spokes of a bicycle wheel, which held in place the roof covering itself, made of a translucent glass-wool membrane coated with PTFE (the actual name for Teflon).

A final detail of note is the band of dark glass panels that runs around the stadium’s exterior, pausing either side of the unadorned Tribuna Tever. It was an odd choice for a building so beholden to the nature of its environment but isn’t as obtrusive as it might sound, reflecting back at you the many stone pines dotted about the area.

It has been pointed out that the Stadio Olimpico and Stadio Diego Maradona are of a similar vintage, although this neglects the fact that the Stadio Olimpico was almost entirely rebuilt for the World Cup. The point still stands. Rome has never let the situation get out of hand. It has tended to the upkeep of its stadium and to the condition of the immediate surroundings.

Renovations carried out in 2007/08, in readiness for the Champions League final in 2009, weren’t radical but cemented the ground’s status as UEFA 5-star venue – darker blue seating was the most obvious change. That it was the scene for the opening ceremony for 60th anniversary of the European Championship was no coincidence. The European Athletics Championships were also held there in 2024. As long as Rome continues to take care of its investment, it should continue to hold many more such events.