Maximiliano benozzi
08/28/2020 - 6:00
- Clarín.com
- sports
It has four models to be inspired by any of them. One from Germany and three from Spain. The Allianz Arena in Bayern Munich, the Santiago Bernabeu of Real Madrid, the Wanda Metropolitan of Atletico Madrid and Nuevo San Mames of Athletic Bilbao. River thinks of a European-style stadium in Udaondo and Figueroa Alcorta. Because the Monumental does not move.
The work that began a few weeks ago to modify the playing field is the foundation stone of a larger work. It is not yet known how or when the next step will be carried out, but the idea of having a European-level pitch is firm.
The conception of having a field of these characteristics arose after a trip that Rodolfo D'Onofrio made three years ago together with Mariano Taratuty , current protesorero and director of Planning of the club, through the Old Continent to visit several modern fields, some in process reform.
The New San Mamés, from Athletic Bilbao. River asked the architect who designed it a couple of years ago for a project to remodel the Monumental. Photo: EFE / Javier Lizón:
They had a good impression of the Nuevo San Mamés, which was built next to the old Athletic de Bilbao stadium. At that time, they even asked the Spanish architect who designed it, César Azcárate, a project for the Monumental.
At that time, at the head of D'Onofrio and several leaders was the possibility of moving the stadium to land belonging to the Armed Forces, located 600 meters from the colossus of Udaondo and Figueroa Alcorta.
But the idea of the move was shelved, given the complex economic context, enhanced by the pandemic. The Monumental will continue in the same place where it has been for 82 years.
The Bayern Munich stadium, one of River's mirrors for the new Monumental. Photo: REUTERS / Michael Dalder
Then, the original idea of reforming it was resumed. An idea that had already been had since D'Onofrio ran for election in 2013, when he was elected president for the first time. Logically, you have to update it to give it shape.
Obviously, the stadium whose creation was inspired by the Roman Colosseum in the 1930s has more than the ten years of useful life that was said to have left at the time the project for a possible new stadium came to light two years ago. years. Of course, sooner rather than later they will have to reform their structures to avoid taking risks.
The installation of a state-of-the-art hybrid lawn and an aeration system at the level of stadiums such as those of Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United and Luzhniki in Moscow, where the last World Cup final was played, has already begun.
At the same time, the ground level will be lowered, a unique tunnel will be made for local and visiting players and the referees to exit and the athletics track, a historical icon, will be removed. All that work will cost 177 million pesos.
These works, which are estimated to be ready by the beginning of next year, will be followed in the future by an even more ambitious project .
As the new playing field will be lower than the current one, that depth will leave the ground prepared for the extension of the low stalls to a point closer to the field, which will mean an expansion in the capacity of the Monumental.
In the old project it was not contemplated that the level of the playing field would be lowered. Therefore, River will look for new architectural drawings that are technically in line with the works that began on the lawn.
To the sketch of the new stalls, we must also add a line of boxes in the middle part of the stands. If all these reforms are completed, the stadium will increase its capacity. It will go from 70 thousand to about 90 thousand people.
And the roof? Although it was considered at some point, today it is discarded. It costs $ 80 million to do so. Almost double what was left 21 years ago when the leadership of that time, headed by David Pintado and Alfredo Davicce, asked for a budget.
It cost at that time 45 million dollars if everything was covered, with a sliding sector for the playing field and about 20 million dollars if the coverage was only for the grandstands.
The image that was projected in the late 90s of a Monumental with a roof. Due to the high cost, the project did not materialize. Photo: Architect Jorge Aslan.
Since the arrival of Rodolfo D'Onofrio, River has been carrying out works in his stadium. Among various things, the bathrooms in the Centenario and Belgrano stands were refurbished (those of the San Martín and Svori are missing), the middle boxes of the San Martín were remodeled and the wooden seats in the lower boxes were replaced by modern ones hard plastic. It is contemplated that in the future all the wooden ones will be removed, which will remain in the memory chest along with other historical pieces of the Monumental.
A modern lawn for the Monumental
The Monumental playing field will have a state-of-the-art hybrid grass installed and an aeration system at the level of the best stadiums in the world.
In turn, the natural grass system reinforced with fiber injection technology will allow more hours of use than a traditional court. Aeration technology will aid root development and lead to the growth of healthier, stronger grass with better quality for play and lower maintenance costs.
With these technologies, for example, the field of the Luzhniki Stadium of the 2018 World Cup could be kept in optimal condition during the five weeks of intensive use of the World Cup (in which it was used the same number of hours that a playing field is used over a year in the English Premier League).
The remodeling of the Monumental has already begun with the works to eliminate the athletics track. Photo: River.
This aeration technology will also make it possible to proactively manage the moisture content on the surface and remove excess water in seconds , which will reduce the risk of damage in bad weather conditions. It will also increase the ventilation of the root zone, providing essential levels for healthy growth and mitigating potential problems.
With the aeration system, it will be possible to have an optimal temperature in the root zone during the winter and summer months with its heating and cooling functionalities, which will avoid seasonal deterioration of the playing field and can be kept in optimal conditions and be sustainable throughout the year. This will avoid the problems generated by the transitions of species that were made until now. And it will not have the problems that today suffer from water absorption on stormy days.
This new system is similar to the one implemented in the stadiums of Barcelona, Real Madrid and Manchester United, among many other great clubs in the world. Thus, River is modernized and also demonstrates its greatness through the Monumental lawn. That green grass that so many great players stepped on and in which the Argentine National Team won its first world title in 1978. Of course , the athletics track will no longer be there to go around the Olympic Games.
History of monumental reforms
The Monumental underwent three structural reforms throughout its 82 years, after being inaugurated on May 26, 1938 after a large-scale work in a hitherto uninhabited sector in the city of Buenos Aires.
One of the first tribunes of the Monumental under construction.
The beginning was with the shape of a horseshoe since it lacked the platform that overlooks the Río de La Plata. And the first major reform came in the late 1950s after the sale of Enrique Omar Sívori , for 10 million pesos (a record figure for the time) to Juventus of Italy. With that money, River closed the stadium by building two trays on the platform that overlooks the Río de La Plata, which today, precisely, bears the name of Sívori.
The upper part had remained to be built, which just arrived when the works for the 78 World Cup, the second great reform of the Monumental, were carried out. There it was also conditioned according to the standards of the time.
And the third was in the 90s with the construction of the boxes in the middle Belgrano tribune.
View from the Monumental while it was being built in the 1930s. Photo: Architect Jorge Aslan.
Opinion*
For those of us who were on the side of "Salvemos al Monumental", that the stadium remains where it is is something fantastic. It is the confirmation that the subject of the change of place did not make sense. I am a fan and life member of River, I am 83 years old and I have been going to see him since I was 5. I was practically born with the Monumental and I have great affection for the stadium.
The further you get off, if the eight rows are not made at the same time, there will be visual difficulties from the middle audience. If you sit in row 10 and look at the sunken court, you may lose sight of part of the court. When the ball approaches the benches, vision can be lost.
Regarding the new reforms that were announced, I agree to remove the track. Athletics were never motorized and the track was a figurehead. In the last time it was used for the celebrations, which luckily were many, but nothing more. And the idea of making a single tunnel for players to enter, the European way, I think is fantastic. It is to modernize the stadium.
In any case, it must be taken into account for possible future works that the stadium was projected with a track and, therefore, it was projected with the visuals corresponding to that diagram. As there is no track, which is logical for the times, we will have to find solutions to the visuals before building new low stands. In addition, the wooden seats that still remain in the stadium would have to be changed first.
And with regard to new stands, we would have to wait to see how life goes after the pandemic. Because perhaps stadiums tend to reduce their capacities and when one invests in that aspect it is to increase them thinking about the large influx of public.
In the high stands, there is one aspect to review: they are the ceiling of a number of things that happen below. And the "badges" have not been changed for a long time. Making a new isolation in the stands is difficult. Instead, placing a roof can be a good possibility since it protects a lot and at the same time modernizes the stadium. A semi-open roof, which does not even need to close the court.
The cracks are avoided with the maintenance of the structures. The last inspection our study made was in 2007 together with the structural engineer Néstor Guitelman. We did a very in-depth inspection and gave River eight shots of places that needed to be reviewed. There were no structural risks at that time but 13 years have passed.
Jorge Aslan, architect, son of José Aslan, who designed the Monumental with Héctor Ezcurra *
FK