Why refurbish the very expensive Montreal Olympic Stadium instead of demolishing it?

The best caricature, if not the truth, at least concentrates the popular opinion about the beings or things. So this week, when Quebec announced its intention to spend $870 million to replace the technical ring and roof of Montreal's Olympic stadium, Quebec cartoonists went again to sum up the love-hate sentiment: “pig tax payer” so wait for the white mammoth inherited from the 1976 Olympics. pay more than the estimated amount for care, maybe much more.

Godin, Duty, turned the monster completely upside down to provide a permanent home. In Quebecor dailies, Ygrec planted the famous orange cone in the stadium. Aislin, c newspaper, set all Mount Royal as green roofs. Chapleau, of press, for his part, he broached the subject twelve times by imagining Taylor Swift at her stadium-opening concert. He is very old and walks…

Chaplot managed to turn the monument into a spaceship (Track Stadium), into a black hole, and even into a toilet bowl. On June 30, 2010, when the Olympic debt was due to be paid off, he wrapped it in a large green garbage bag and offered a solution for the future…

This caricature appears in Romain Rult's PhD thesis in urban and tourism studies at UQAM next year. The title of a very important work, spread over 300 pages: Revival of Olympic heritage and renewal of urban space: Olympic stadium as a vector of development. If I am not mistaken, he is the only scholar who has studied the Olympic legacy at this high academic level, in particular the planning and reconstruction of the stadiums, which are the central and emblematic elements of all the Games.

By comparing Montreal, Barcelona and Sydney, the doctoral thesis provided insight into why some performance temples succeeded in their conversion and others failed. In this comparative portrait, “Big O,” as Anglo-Montrealers call him, slightly abuses his right to crash. The thesis even talks about the quintessential model of post-Olympic failure…

“This paradox between respect and admiration for the building, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the costs and the financial burden of its work, the eternal cynicism about its use and the completion of its roof, is a great challenge for re-evaluation. Mr. Rult wrote about this building and these places in his dissertation. Thus, for the RIO (Olympic Facilities Authority), one of the main issues of this development logic of the Olympic Park and Stadium is to change the image of this site among Quebec residents, local stakeholders and all media. »

Therapeutic restlessness

Has Quebec changed its mind that much? The caricatures, columns, and many comments that have piled up on social media in recent days would suggest otherwise. Commentary heard on the radio basically says that the stadium deserves medical help to die when medical carelessness is imposed on it…

So fix it or tear it down. Quebec made the decision by once again vowing that the monumental equipment would contribute to the revitalization of eastern Montreal and the international influence of the metropolis. Projections on paper double the economic impact (to 150 million per year) by increasing the number of major holiday events such as concerts or trade fairs by a factor of five (from 30 to 150).

“I think it's a legitimate decision for what we're being offered,” said Romain Roult, now a professor and director of the Department of Leisure, Culture and Tourism Studies at the University of Quebec in Trois. Riviere. “Of course, I am not an architect, much less involved in the day-to-day management of the Olympic stadium and the park. But we were told that a decisive decision should be made in a very short period of time. »

Since the early 2010s, he said, the Olympic Park has gone on an “interesting tangent,” offering shows, professional sports, and a host of indoor and outdoor activities for the surrounding area. Over the past decade, the site has been attracting an average of one million visitors per year. “Quebec's decision to renew rather than deconstruct is consistent with the site's desire to develop,” concludes Professor Raut.

This wish comes back to the report For the Olympic Park. Completion. Future In 2012, he was represented in the Advisory Committee on the Future of the Olympic Park. The panel of experts was led by former director Lise Bissonnette Duty. The idea of ​​relaunching and revitalizing this legacy has since been honored, for example by adding a Planetarium, renovating the Biodome, and converting the tower into rental spaces and gazebos.

Over time and with these changes, the site has acquired an aura worth preserving for many people, Professor Rouault noted. Debt and even Olympic failures are behind us. Now the heritage structure can be seen as something other than the remnants of old practices in the field of construction. Here, as elsewhere, we have seen other abuses that are even more shocking. Does Sochi mean anything to you?

“We are not against a general stadium with four open-air stands, like the Saputo stadium,” says Prof. Rouault, acknowledging the major shortcomings of architect Taylibert's grand patent, which was ultimately designed too little to host professional sports, soccer and football. or baseball. “We are standing in front of a stadium that can be described as amazing, monumental. From a structural standpoint alone, it's still quite a feat. This stadium is unique in the world and requires more thought than most of the highly functional stadiums we see everywhere. »

To see in the video