inutile parlarne sai,
non capiresti mai
essay by João Paupério e Maria Rebelo (atelier local)
The future was in the present, where the past ought to be
San Siro stadium is a monument. And we don't say that lightly: it's obvious from the imposing size of its towers, the majestic crown of red trusses, or its long history of successes. San Siro is objectively one of the largest stadiums in Europe. But it's a monument above all because it's already part of a collective memory. Not just for those who enjoy soccer in particular, but for those who enjoy the best that sports has to offer.
San Siro crosses borders: not just those of Italy, but those of football itself. San Siro isn't just in Milan. San Siro is also in Valongo, where we live and work, on the outskirts of Porto where the fans of the local in-line hockey club decided to call their small municipal pavilion San Siro to describe the atmosphere inside. And where even a small team with no resources is capable of rising to beat the best teams. For them, as for other fans, San Siro isn't just a building, it's also, and first and foremost, a state of mind.
San Siro is a monument because it is a collective work, built by the long passage of history. As a work of art, San Siro is one of those buildings that perfectly illustrates the principle Godard pointed to when he wrote: CLASSIC=MODERN. Or when Lawrence Weiner remarked that "this rubbish about generations doesn't make any sense. All the people who walk the earth at the same time belong to the same generation." The resilience of San Siro, its ability to grow, transform and reinvent itself throughout history, responding to the demands of hundreds of thousands of fans from different eras, seems to confirm something similar about architecture. In essence, the classic and the modern are the same and it is for this very reason that it makes little sense to freeze heritage or declare it obsolete.
San Siro is a monument because it illustrates in and of itself a considerable part of history, both in terms of football and architecture itself. At San Siro, several "generations" and "lessons" coexist in a single space-time. From San Siro, our imagination can leap to the most beautiful achievements of the Soviet constructivists or the British neo-brutalists, who emerged in force at the same time as their ramps were being erected. From San Siro we can also learn the meaning of the Vitruvian triade, which in varying proportions has served as the foundation for the history of Western architecture: firmitas, utilitas and venustas. San Siro remains firm, it remains useful, and it remains beautiful. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a symbol of such magnitude.
If, as an architectural device, the purpose of a stadium is to allow a football match to take place in the best conditions, for the best team to win in those conditions and for the fans to enjoy those victories, no one can say that San Siro is obsolete. Both FC Inter and AC Milan remain two of the most competitive teams in Italy. And every football fan still wishes that one day they could watch a match in the cauldron of San Siro. San Siro is a monument because it's alive, because some of the best football matches are still played there, and no-one would say that it will soon be celebrating its centenary.
The torsal columns, without a base but with an expressive shaft and capital, evoke both the classical and modern spirit, which found in the management of flows a fundamental problem for an architecture of new spirit. The agility with which spectators are led from the city to their seats, fundamental to the smooth running of a stadium, is at San Siro a question of composition and not mere efficiency. The ramps are transformed in elevation, crowned by a frieze that doubles as a grandstand. The path to the interior extends in an architectural promenade, intensifying an indispensable ritual-experience for those travelling to the stadium: feeling the anticipation and expectation that grow with the proximity to the starting whistle, and which have been so well described by Yuri Ancarani's in-movement images. At San Siro, performance becomes performativity, proving that reason has never excluded ornament and that a stadium can be as much a silo as a temple.
In addition to its architecture, San Siro was a symbol of something rare in the world of football: the fraternity and co-operation possible between two eternal rivals. But like practically everything else in the world, the best of sport has also been taken over by the icy waters of selfish calculation and the darkest financial interests. More than a sport, football has become an important financial investment sector in recent years. In 2019, both teams presented a project to build a new joint stadium, agreeing that San Siro was obsolete by contemporary standards of efficiency and performance, and that its refurbishment would have too high an impact in terms of return. A solution that involved demolishing the old San Siro, under the absurd pretence that it would be replaced by a "green", "sustainable" stadium with "zero impact". As if the demolition of a historic stadium, with all the energy and spoils it entails, wasn't a small environmental and emotional offence. A senseless crime, of which the photographs now taken by Luca Bosco and Francisco Ascensão now appear as new clues.
Meanwhile, San Siro's protected heritage status prevented it from being demolished. However, instead of abandoning their absurd project, FC Inter and AC Milan preferred to deepen it, deciding to build not one, but two new stadiums, putting an end to decades of mutualism. As Tamburelli, the most vocal of Italian architects against the abandonment of San Siro, had already written, "a great building like San Siro can always be adapted, as long as you can also adapt (marginally) the standards by which it is measured, as long as you accept that between the stands and the restaurant there can be nineteen steps instead of seventeen". But for this to happen, the problem would have to be one of architecture, and not one of financial interests, as it seems increasingly clear is the case. In other words, it would have to be a real architectural problem, as a spatial device, and not as an instrument for fuelling the engines of gentrification and property speculation.
San Siro is the most ecological stadium because it already exists. San Siro is the most economical stadium because it already exists. San Siro is the most beautiful stadium because it already has the patina of countless victories. For all these reasons, San Siro is a monument. For all these reasons, keeping it alive would be a gesture of resistance against the destruction of football (like so many other common goods of humanity) by obscure interests that are not really those of people who watch football for the beauty of the sport. Everything else is just greenwashing manoeuvres of the same scale as those that would have us believe that lithium batteries are going to save humanity.
As we approach the end of this text, we realise that we may not have time to attend a match at San Siro, and that saddens us. The future of San Siro was in the present, where its past would also be. Now, it seems, the stadium itself will remain a monument: but haunted by everything else, it will henceforth become, above all, the symbol of a defeat.
The future was in the present, where the past ought to be
San Siro stadium is a monument. And we don't say that lightly: it's obvious from the imposing size of its towers, the majestic crown of red trusses, or its long history of successes. San Siro is objectively one of the largest stadiums in Europe. But it's a monument above all because it's already part of a collective memory. Not just for those who enjoy soccer in particular, but for those who enjoy the best that sports has to offer.
San Siro crosses borders: not just those of Italy, but those of football itself. San Siro isn't just in Milan. San Siro is also in Valongo, where we live and work, on the outskirts of Porto where the fans of the local in-line hockey club decided to call their small municipal pavilion San Siro to describe the atmosphere inside. And where even a small team with no resources is capable of rising to beat the best teams. For them, as for other fans, San Siro isn't just a building, it's also, and first and foremost, a state of mind.
San Siro is a monument because it is a collective work, built by the long passage of history. As a work of art, San Siro is one of those buildings that perfectly illustrates the principle Godard pointed to when he wrote: CLASSIC=MODERN. Or when Lawrence Weiner remarked that "this rubbish about generations doesn't make any sense. All the people who walk the earth at the same time belong to the same generation." The resilience of San Siro, its ability to grow, transform and reinvent itself throughout history, responding to the demands of hundreds of thousands of fans from different eras, seems to confirm something similar about architecture. In essence, the classic and the modern are the same and it is for this very reason that it makes little sense to freeze heritage or declare it obsolete.
San Siro is a monument because it illustrates in and of itself a considerable part of history, both in terms of football and architecture itself. At San Siro, several "generations" and "lessons" coexist in a single space-time. From San Siro, our imagination can leap to the most beautiful achievements of the Soviet constructivists or the British neo-brutalists, who emerged in force at the same time as their ramps were being erected. From San Siro we can also learn the meaning of the Vitruvian triade, which in varying proportions has served as the foundation for the history of Western architecture: firmitas, utilitas and venustas. San Siro remains firm, it remains useful, and it remains beautiful. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a symbol of such magnitude.
If, as an architectural device, the purpose of a stadium is to allow a football match to take place in the best conditions, for the best team to win in those conditions and for the fans to enjoy those victories, no one can say that San Siro is obsolete. Both FC Inter and AC Milan remain two of the most competitive teams in Italy. And every football fan still wishes that one day they could watch a match in the cauldron of San Siro. San Siro is a monument because it's alive, because some of the best football matches are still played there, and no-one would say that it will soon be celebrating its centenary.
The torsal columns, without a base but with an expressive shaft and capital, evoke both the classical and modern spirit, which found in the management of flows a fundamental problem for an architecture of new spirit. The agility with which spectators are led from the city to their seats, fundamental to the smooth running of a stadium, is at San Siro a question of composition and not mere efficiency. The ramps are transformed in elevation, crowned by a frieze that doubles as a grandstand. The path to the interior extends in an architectural promenade, intensifying an indispensable ritual-experience for those travelling to the stadium: feeling the anticipation and expectation that grow with the proximity to the starting whistle, and which have been so well described by Yuri Ancarani's in-movement images. At San Siro, performance becomes performativity, proving that reason has never excluded ornament and that a stadium can be as much a silo as a temple.
In addition to its architecture, San Siro was a symbol of something rare in the world of football: the fraternity and co-operation possible between two eternal rivals. But like practically everything else in the world, the best of sport has also been taken over by the icy waters of selfish calculation and the darkest financial interests. More than a sport, football has become an important financial investment sector in recent years. In 2019, both teams presented a project to build a new joint stadium, agreeing that San Siro was obsolete by contemporary standards of efficiency and performance, and that its refurbishment would have too high an impact in terms of return. A solution that involved demolishing the old San Siro, under the absurd pretence that it would be replaced by a "green", "sustainable" stadium with "zero impact". As if the demolition of a historic stadium, with all the energy and spoils it entails, wasn't a small environmental and emotional offence. A senseless crime, of which the photographs now taken by Luca Bosco and Francisco Ascensão now appear as new clues.
Meanwhile, San Siro's protected heritage status prevented it from being demolished. However, instead of abandoning their absurd project, FC Inter and AC Milan preferred to deepen it, deciding to build not one, but two new stadiums, putting an end to decades of mutualism. As Tamburelli, the most vocal of Italian architects against the abandonment of San Siro, had already written, "a great building like San Siro can always be adapted, as long as you can also adapt (marginally) the standards by which it is measured, as long as you accept that between the stands and the restaurant there can be nineteen steps instead of seventeen". But for this to happen, the problem would have to be one of architecture, and not one of financial interests, as it seems increasingly clear is the case. In other words, it would have to be a real architectural problem, as a spatial device, and not as an instrument for fuelling the engines of gentrification and property speculation.
San Siro is the most ecological stadium because it already exists. San Siro is the most economical stadium because it already exists. San Siro is the most beautiful stadium because it already has the patina of countless victories. For all these reasons, San Siro is a monument. For all these reasons, keeping it alive would be a gesture of resistance against the destruction of football (like so many other common goods of humanity) by obscure interests that are not really those of people who watch football for the beauty of the sport. Everything else is just greenwashing manoeuvres of the same scale as those that would have us believe that lithium batteries are going to save humanity.
As we approach the end of this text, we realise that we may not have time to attend a match at San Siro, and that saddens us. The future of San Siro was in the present, where its past would also be. Now, it seems, the stadium itself will remain a monument: but haunted by everything else, it will henceforth become, above all, the symbol of a defeat.