The Italian design for the stadium in Zagreb wins but is put on hold

There is no end to the controversy in Croatia over the new Maksimir Stadium in Zagreb. The ground where the national team plays has already been modified several times, is in poor condition and is largely uncovered.

The competition, which attracted 88 entries from over twenty countries, was won, to everyone’s surprise, by a small Milanese practice, VG13, run by Tommaso Fantini and Alberto Rossi, both aged 34. It had been since the competition for the Centre Pompidou in Paris that anything like this had happened: Renzo Piano was more or less the same age in 1971 (see the new book co-written with Francesco Merlo, "Tutto qui. La costruzione di una vita", Solferino). Just as back then, controversy is running rampant, except that today it plays out on social media, which frightens politicians more than print media ever did. And so the shitstorm ensued.

It was first launched by a group of local architects, with sarcastic AI renderings depicting the new project as a large box or a toolbox. Then the debate descended into a frenzy of nationalist bots. The vote for the Italian project was unanimous across the entire jury, comprising representatives from the government and the city, as well as technical experts such as Zvonimir Boban, the current president of Dinamo Zagreb. Despite this, a few days later the Ministry of the Economy lodged an official appeal. Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, acting as if he were a monarch, stated that he did not like the project, thereby triggering the U-turn.

There is not only the precedent of the Pompidou Centre, which ultimately prevailed despite all the criticism for the insertion of a massive architectural structure into the Marais. There is also that of the extension to the National Gallery in London, designed by the firm Ahrends Burton Koralek. The project was halted by then-Prince Charles in a speech in which he described it as “a monstrous boil on the face of an elegant and much-loved friend” – namely Trafalgar Square. At the time, the prince’s aesthetic intervention was publicly challenged by Richard Rogers, but this was not enough to save the project.

This time round in Croatia, there are not many voices in defence of the VG13 project, which, incidentally, also includes plans for the surrounding Svetice sports centre. One exception is Rajka Bunjevac, president of the Architects’ Association, who pointed out that a European competition cannot be thrown into disarray because of the crass irony of a handful of envious chauvinists.

The ‘scandal’ surrounding the project stems from the open corners of the new stadium. They are not made of concrete, as the authors of the Instagram campaign would have us believe, but of steel: reinforced concrete, in fact, dredges up the old ghosts of Yugoslav brutalism – that is, communism – a memory that people still wish to erase at all costs. In fact, the fans would prefer a closed, bowl-shaped stadium. This is the design that has become all the rage in Europe since Herzog & de Meuron’s Allianz Arena in Munich, built for the 2006 World Cup: enclosed, immersive stadiums capable of lighting up at night and putting on a show even from the inside. The problem, however, is that stadiums of this kind are much more expensive both to build and to maintain: in other words, goodbye to affordable ticket prices. Boban is well aware of this, having worked with both FIFA and UEFA.

Croatia is a small country with a population of less than four million. Over the last thirty years, due to a falling birth rate and emigration, it has lost almost a million people, and it certainly does not have the resources of the major American investment funds. The problem, incidentally, also arises in Split. Hajduk’s historic Poljud stadium, with its shell-shaped roof designed by Boris Magaš in 1979, is at risk of demolition due to public pressure. The process will not be straightforward, given the listing by the Heritage Authority and the staunch defence mounted by the Institute of Architects.