Nate Berg has a nice article in the New York Times on how Brazil’s Maracanã — the massive stadium built for the 1950 World Cup, where some two hundred thousand spectators watched the final between Brazil and Uruguay — has traditionally served as an important public space (“a rare type of space in Rio where you can actually get together people of different social classes”), a function which is now threatened by renovations for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, as the modernization of stadium facilities promises to finish pricing out Rio’s masses.
Berg’s article reminds me that I’d love to see a study of how stadia function (historically, presently) as public spaces. We’ve never attempted anything so rigorous here, but we have produced a few brief scattered thoughts on stadia, from Allianz Arena as a test case for networked urbanism to touring Soccer City Stadium from above and within to reading Dan Hill on the design of “The Cloud” for London’s Olympics.
