ROME — The pages of the Italian passport supply a crash-course of kinds on excessive factors within the nation’s structure. After the Pantheon in Rome and the Ducal Palace in Venice, web page 31 reveals a extra trendy construction: the cantilevered grandstand cover of Florence’s most important sports activities stadium, designed 90 years in the past by the Italian architect Pier Luigi Nervi.
Instantly acclaimed for its avant-garde design, the bolstered concrete Artemio Franchi stadium is understood to modern architects and engineers by way of numerous textbooks on Twentieth-century structure.
So, when the brand new American proprietor of A.C.F. Fiorentina, the stadium’s resident soccer group, introduced this yr that he needed to tear the stadium all the way down to construct a extra comfy and trendy venue for the membership’s followers, architects and heritage associations went on the warpath.
Phrase of the menace obtained round quick amongst structure guilds and college colleges. An online petition asking Florence’s mayor to save lots of the stadium has been signed by heritage advocates as distant as Asia and Australia; ICOMOS, the France-based worldwide company that defends at-risk monuments and websites, has issued a heritage alert.
Final Might, a committee of specialists unanimously licensed the constructing’s cultural and historic significance, bringing it beneath Italy’s strict conservation legal guidelines. However in September, the Italian authorities handed a decree designed primarily to streamline procedures for public works. The legislation included an article permitting sporting services, no matter their historic significance, to bypass conservation necessities to make modifications — together with reconstruction — that will enhance a construction’s effectivity and convey it as much as “worldwide requirements of safety, well being and public security.”
Tradition Ministry officers should determine particular parts of the sporting facility worthy of preservation: These can then be eliminated and conserved elsewhere, or reproduced, even in a distinct scale, the brand new legislation says.
“As absurd because it appears, the very individuals who had been as soon as tasked with defending a monument are actually known as on to resolve what to destroy,” stated Elisabetta Margiotta Nervi, secretary normal of the Pier Luigi Nervi Project Association, which was based by the architect’s heirs to safeguard his heritage.
Italy takes the safety of its cultural heritage so critically that it’s enshrined within the Structure. So conservators had been instantly involved when legislators permitted measures chipping away at ideas that appeared untouchable. Many worry that the legislation pushed by way of final September might be step one towards dismantling Italy’s strict — and extensively praised — conservation legal guidelines.
A.C.F. Fiorentina was bought in 2019 by Rocco B. Commisso, the billionaire chairman of the cable supplier Mediacom. On the time, Mr. Commisso stated that he was taking a look at what might be performed concerning the group’s stadium, which undeniably lacks most of the bells and whistles of the arenas which might be residence to groups in Europe’s different high leagues.
Amongst criticisms of the design is that the seats on its curved sides are too removed from the taking part in area; that it is just partly lined, so followers get moist when it rains; and that the retrofitted seats (it was designed as a standing-room stadium) are uncomfortable.
Most modern sports activities grounds embrace business areas with shops, gyms, eating places, even museums that assist groups defray their prices — however there are none of those within the Thirties Artemio Franchi stadium.
The constructing is owned by Florence metropolis corridor, which shares some upkeep prices with A.C.F. Fiorentina. A spokesman for town, who requested to not be recognized, as is frequent in Italian establishments, stated that structural research carried out with the College of Florence recommended that the stadium was exhibiting indicators of wear and tear, “which is regular for an almost 100-year-old constructing,” and that the constructing additionally required important work to enhance its safety within the occasion of an earthquake.
The town’s most important curiosity, the spokesman stated, was that followers may proceed to see video games in security.
Mr. Commisso declined to be interviewed and, by way of a spokesman, the membership declined to remark.
However final month, Mr. Commisso gave an interview to Radio Viola, a daily sports activities program about A.C.F. Fiorentina, during which he stated {that a} new stadium was essential for the franchise to flourish.
“Until revenues improve by rather a lot, Fiorentina gained’t have the ability to compete” in opposition to golf equipment with greater budgets, Mr. Commisso stated. Citing a study commissioned by the group, Mr. Commisso stated {that a} new stadium would remodel the membership’s funds.
Mario Tenerani, editor in chief of Brivido Sportivo, Florence’s most important sports activities newspaper, stated that most of the group’s followers, “even when they’re from Florence, don’t care concerning the outdated stadium” and can be completely satisfied to have a brand new one instead.
“They’re with Rocco,” he stated.
Various options that had been proposed, together with constructing a brand new stadium in one other a part of town, have fallen by way of.
“The perfect resolution can be a compromise, however he doesn’t desire a compromise,” Mr. Tenerani added. “He needs to construct a stadium that lives as much as his expectations.”
Two weeks in the past, Mr. Commisso’s group set the ball in movement, writing to the Tradition Ministry to formally ask officers in Rome to confirm whether or not there have been parts of the stadium that must be preserved. The Franchi’s most distinctive parts are its helical staircases, cantilevered cover and a tall slender tower generally known as the Marathon tower that overlooks the sports activities area — however heritage advocates say your entire stadium is a masterpiece that should be preserved in its entirety.
“As a bit of stadium design it was tremendously influential — you possibly can level to dozens, if not a whole lot of stadiums all around the world that had been performed within the early and mid-Twentieth century that adopted a variety of identical issues that Nervi was exploring there,” stated Thomas Leslie, a professor of structure at Iowa State College, and one of many most important promoters of the petition to save lots of the stadium.
The ministry’s response is anticipated inside 10 weeks.
Andrea Pessina, the Tradition Ministry’s high conservation official in Florence and one of many specialists to declare the stadium a nationwide landmark in Might, stated in a phone interview that his workplace would have been open to permitting adjustments to stadium, due to its age and altering requirements. Even overlaying the grandstands and including business areas appeared potential, he stated. “However not demolishing,” he added.
That call, nonetheless, is out of his fingers. Below the brand new legislation, one other official, in Rome, will make the decision.
Conservators who wish to save the stadium say that trendy building strategies and high tier architects would have the ability to restyle the constructing, bringing it as much as code, whereas leaving it intact, pointing to different trendy examples like Renzo Piano’s work on the Morgan Library in New York, or Mario Botta’s revamp of La Scala opera home in Milan.
Such a restyling could be “a troublesome problem however one which town of Florence, the cradle of Italian tradition, can’t refuse,” stated Marco Magnifico, govt vice chairman of the Fondo Ambiente Italiano, a heritage group.
And Mr. Pessina, the tradition official, was particularly pessimistic that the relief of the nation’s strict conservation legal guidelines might be prolonged to other forms of constructions, like its historic prepare stations or public buildings.
“It’s a crack that opens in a dam,” he stated.
