Thesis Programme Christopher Paxton Tutor: Niels Grønbæk Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Dept. 2, EK Spring 2014
STADIA AND the CITY
STADIA AND THE CITY Thesis Programme Christopher Paxton Tutor: Niels Grønbæk Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Dept. 2, EK Spring 2014
08 Agenda 10 Design Task 12 Looping Cycle Starting Point 14 The Stadium ‘Type’? 16 Urban Integration 20 Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium 30 Transformation 32 Scope & Submission 33 Working Method 37 Appendices I. Narratives II. Evolution of Stadia III. Football in Turkey IV. CV 53 References & Bibliography
Northwest Stand Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium, Kasimpasa, Istanbul, 2013
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Stadia and The City
AGENDA Through its dramatic proximity to homes, shops, bars, museums, mosques, garages and all manner of city activity, the Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium in Istanbul opens up a new set of relations between the urban environment and the contemporary culture of viewing sporting events. Such proximity provides opportunity to explore the urban potential of the contemporary stadium, by speculating and proposing a possible future transformation of the Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium. For this specific context, the project will examine the capacity of the sporting arena to enhance a multitude of complementary or contradictory urban processes, celebrating the stadium as a highly visible and vital urban component; cultivator of civic identity and platform for cultural exchange. This thesis implies a certain sensitivity to context, whereby the stadium exists in a reciprocally implicated relationship with the urban environment; both are informed and challenged by the other’s presence. Consequently, the project imposes a method in which these concerns - stadia and city - form two aspects of a looping process of investigation. Architectural narratives that reveal intersections between the urban condition and the stadium or sporting logic will be explored; themes of crowds, viewpoint, medial space, ritual and hybridisation, are all discussed in this programme’s appendices.
sporting arenas and explore the particular conditions ultimately required to actuate spaces for the viewing of sports events in the specific contemporary urban context of central Istanbul. Certainly, the project challenges trends of segregation and standardisation in contemporary stadium design; in its deliberate choice to examine a high density urban setting, the project seeks to initiate new relations between the contemporary sports arena and a range urban programmes, structures and activities. Intentionally, aspects of investigation will remain open-ended, prompting further questions. The project’s outcomes may exist as speculations as to the urban implications of major sporting or cultural events, or the future of the stadium typology.
This study seeks to engage with the question of ‘type’ in relation to stadium architecture. The project will evaluate the consistent formal character of historic
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The future life of the stadium? Housing inside former baseball stadium, Osaka, Japan, 1997
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DESIGN TASK Architectural research will be conducted through a design project situated in a high density, mixed-use urban context, in an emerging, global city. Design proposals will explore a future transformation of the Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium, home of Kasimpasaspor Football Club, and its surrounding urban area of Kasimpasa, in central Istanbul, Turkey. In the last 30 years, Kasimpasaspor’s stadium has undergone a series of expansions, however, in the context of the team’s recent successes and the rapid growth of Istanbul’s construction industry, their facilities remain small. Design proposals will simply investigate a future iteration, with the location of the existing football pitch retained. Programmatically, the design will go beyond just the stadium; architectural investigation will be concerned with both the design of the sporting arena and a range of urban structures and programmes. The precise nature of transformation is to be explored; whether it involves expansion, contraction or modification. Thus, the study will remain open to a range of possible futures, perhaps even one where the sporting event no longer occurs.
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LOOPING CYCLE This thesis project is concerned with both the design of a stadium and the architecture of accompanying urban structures. In many ways, a definition between ‘stadium’ and other programmes may become more or less distinct, and at times indistinguishable. To investigate this relationship, its contradictions and resonances, the project will evolve through a looping cycle between these two considerations - stadium and city - inventively applying an identified logic of one, to the other, and vice-versa. stadium
movement. As a consequence, the study is somewhat imbalanced at present. Thus, the thesis project will be initiated by investigations into the urban character of Kasimpasa, using the very presence of the stadium as a lens to speculate and be propositional.
idealised stadium
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extent
optimum
of viewpoint
viewpoint
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So far, research has largely focussed on the architectural nature of the stadium; the staging of events, ritual, dispersal of viewpoints - spectator and TV viewer programmatic hybridisation and mass
stadium ‘type’
The current project map, right, situates several architectural narratives identified during fieldwork in Istanbul and preliminary studies. Importantly, these themes point to future directions of the project and are discussed in detail in the appendices.
angle - 34’
segregation optimisation
Through this looping cycle, the project’s initiative may shift back and forth between these two concerns over the course of the study. Where appropriate, investigations will look to explore the least developed side of the project.
STARTING POINT
100m
190m
64m
optimum rake
event-time
authenticity FUTURE STADIum?
security+ logistics protest masses
erdogan
football in istanbul
individual
viewpoint
kasimpasa mobilisation civilisation topophilia/ topophobia
medial space RItual
home/shop/mosque/bar museum/hamam/garage/ cafe/teahouse/school
hybridisation urban integration
Project Map January 2014
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THE STADIUM ‘TYPE’? While exploring the specific urban context of Kasimpasa, Istanbul, this study also intends to align itself with a wider, ongoing dialogue regarding the stadium typology.
[Refer to Appendix II]
Recognition of a ‘type’ associated to an architectural design task suggests the inheritance of a certain preconditioned image, or formal character, which, to some extent, informs the following design process1. It seems that the existence of the stadium type in contemporary architecture has been borne out of a consistent design tradition, established throughout the 20th Century. Today, stadium design has become one of the most highly regulated architectural tasks2; the architect must interpret well-established game rules and now internationally valid designations of the playing field, while also meeting the rigorous criteria for managing the mass of spectators and maintaining security. In addition, the lasting requirement to organise optimum conditions for the basic social setting of viewer and actor, produces further formal homogeneity - it is understandable that contemporary stadia still resemble the Colosseum in some ways. It is the ambition of this project to challenge the design standards or preconditioned images inherited from the consideration of stadium as an architectural ‘type’. Design proposals may transcend fixed ideas of the stadium as a static, formal object by identifying the exact conditions ultimately required to actuate contemporary spaces for viewing sporting events in a particular urban context.
Plan and section of the Colosseum Rome, 80 AD
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Optimised stadium geometry ‘Idealised’ Stadium - seating bowl plan and fan mile Turk Telecom Arena, Istanbul 2012
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URBAN integration
[Refer to Appendix II]
[Refer to Appendix III]
[Refer to Appendix I: Ritual]
Today, unlike any other building, the stadium stages the organised congregation of tens of thousands of people, in a collective demonstration of a contemporary social order. And yet, in a growing trend, stadia exist in an increasingly compromised relationship with the contemporary city and its citizens. Once a significant facet of classical civic life, this typology has become hermetic, standing as disconnected obstacles in urban areas, frequently unoccupied and often relocated to the urban fringes. With sporting and large cultural events now almost entirely controlled by private investors, sponsors and the media, stadia architecture is often more concerned with the defence of a privatised territory, rather than the support of a public space that engages and identifies with the city. These contemporary trends of stadia design can be plotted in Istanbul where expanding stadiums have been suburbanised and reconstructed as large scale, fortified icons. Understandable perhaps, for reasons of security and crowd management, however, far away from the central Istanbul, the Turk Telecom Arena, 2011 and Ataturk Olympic Stadium, 2000, occupy underdeveloped landscapes, and have limited relationship to their context - connected only through the umbilical cord-like motorway or metro links. While it is likely Kasimpasaspor FC will follow suit in the coming years, this project proposes an alternative by retaining the existing location; a contemporary sporting arena located in an area close to a nexus of local support and firmly implicated by and informing a range of accompanying urban structures, activities and programmes.
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It is this distinctive urban proximity that the project intends to explore, as a way of re-evaluating the contemporary culture of viewing sporting events. It is clear that alongside the seats, tiers, steps, gangways, club shops, ticket offices and turnstiles of the stadium, a range of everyday, ritualistic spaces form part of an overall spatial narrative that characterises the experience of viewing a sporting occasion - for Istanbul’s football supporter culture a particular set of spaces emerge: metrostop platforms, cornershops, bufe (street vendors), kebab houses, dolmus buses, kiraathanesi (teahouses), meeting points, alleyways, mosques, taxi interiors. This project will explore how specific ritualistic behaviours, occurring at the precise intervals of the football fixture list, may affect and be informed by complementary or contradictory urban processes happening simultaneously.
Comparing the urban integration of stadia: Clockwise from top left: Football pitch in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium, Kasimpasa, Istanbul. Ataturk Olympic Stadium, Ikitelli, Istanbul. Turk Telecom Arena, ĹžiĹ&#x;li, Istanbul.
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Building Private Areas (Kasimpasaspor) Ticket Private Areas Ticket Public Areas Unused/Incidental
Figure Ground & Matchday Territories Plan, Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium Kasimpasaspor vs Elazigspor, 06.10.2013, Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium, Kasimpasa, Istanbul, 1:10 000
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Building Private Areas (Galatasaray) Ticket Private Areas Ticket Public Areas Unused/Incidental
Figure Ground & Matchday Territories Plan, Turk Telecom Arena Galatasaray vs Rizespor, 28.09.2013, Turk Telecom Arena, ĹžiĹ&#x;li, Istanbul, 1:10 000
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RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN STADIUM Kasimpasaspor’s football stadium lies at the base of steep hillside in Beyoglu, on the European side of Istanbul. Partially cut into the slope, its very presence enables generous views across the Golden Horn towards Fatih from the top of the hillside. Straddling a varied set of urban conditions, future development must interpret specific tectonic, programmatic and ideological characteristics. On its lower sides, it is closely bordered by five or six storey housing, shops and bars belonging to the Kasimpasa neighbourhood. This area is notable for its maritime industries, conservative attitudes,
moderate deprivation and as being the home district of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s divisive Prime Minister, after whom the stadium is now named. Kasimpasa’s civic centre is located around Bahriye Caddesi and Bulent Demir Caddesi, where there are mosques, markets, hamams, schools and, to the southern end, a harbour and naval base. To the East of the stadium, the hillside is mostly underdeveloped because of its steepness. The top of the slope is terraced by the wide Tarlabasi Boulevard and a subterranean multistorey carpark that serves the Istanbul Exhibition Hall. Beyond lies Galata, and significantly, Istiklal Caddesi, Istanbul’s major shopping street, nightlife hotspot and hub of global culture.
golden horn
BOSPHORUS
Location Plan Central Istanbul. 1:25 000
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Bahr iye C ad.
Cad. t dem ir bulen
A a tarl basi blv.
KASIMPASA
istik lal
cad.
A
GALATA
Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium Kasimpasa , Istanbul. 1:5 000
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Meydan Kiraathanesi (Kasimpasaspor teahouse) Toros Kiraathanesi (Kasimpasaspor teahouse) Pasa Store (Kasimpasaspor club shop) Caricature Museum Sports Centre Istanbul Exhibition Hall Yahya Kethuda Mosque Pera City Suites Hotel Odakule Art Gallery Ahmet Emin Yalman School AK Party Offices Guzelce Kasimpasa Mosque Buyuk Hamam Naval Base British Consulate
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01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
11
10 15
07 13 01 12
05
04
09
02 14
06
03 08
Significant buildings surrounding the Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium Kasimpasa , Istanbul. 1:5 000
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Bahriye Cad.
AKP Offices
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Yahya Kethuda Mosque
Meydan Kiraathanesi
Football Pitch and Stands
Odakule Art Gallery Tarlabasi Blv.
Turnstiles
Istiklal Cad.
Istanbul Exhibition Hall and Car Park
Section AA through Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium facing Northwards 1:2500
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Marketplace near Bulent Demir Caddesi, Kasimpasa, October 2013
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Kids play football in the street between the Meydan Kiraathanesi and the side of the stadium’s Northwest stand Kasimpasa, October 2013
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Looking Southwest from the Caricature Museum over the Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium towards the Kasimpasa Neighbourhood and Fatih on the other side of the Golden Horn October 2013
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Anticipating continued investment, sporting success and increasing popularity
Süper Lig TFF 1. Lig TFF 2. Lig
[Refer to Appendix III]
The recent fortunes of Kasimpasaspor Football Club are an almost direct consequence of Turkey’s economic growth. In 2001, the club was bought by ambitious billionaire owners Turgay Ciner and Mübariz Mansiov with the clear aim of making the team successful to enhance their own public profiles - the investors were aware of Prime Minister Erdogan’s affection towards Kasimpasa, where he grew up. Driven by the new investment, the team has risen from the third tier of Turkish football to second place in the top league and club facilities have undergone a series of rapid improvements. Meanwhile, fan numbers have risen and local businesses are starting to benefit economically from increasing support and matchday revenue. Now one of Turkey’s major teams and with the prospect of competing in European competition for the first time, the club is likely to increase its stadium capacity from 13,500 to around 40,000 or 50,000, matching the capacity of its biggest rivals.
Qualification for European Competition
TFF 3. Lig
The Turkish economy has experienced spectacular growth in recent years; since 2000, the country’s per capita income has nearly trebled3. It is described as a ‘catchup economy’, making up for a period of limited development between 1970-2000. Dramatic investments have sparked a construction boom, evident in the proliferation of skyscrapers, shopping malls and iconic infrastructural projects such as the third Bosphorus bridge. With the construction of what will be the world’s largest airport the country hopes to become a future global economic giant.
of Kasimpasaspor, this project will propose a possible future transformation of the Recep Tayyip Erdogan stadium and the neighbourhood of Kasimpasa. The study will speculate as to how the proposed architecture may respond to the club’s economic or footballing performance.
Amatör Futbol Ligleri
TRANsformation
1980
1990
2000
2010 2014
Table showing Kasimpasaspor FC’s league position over the last 40 years. Currently, the team lie in 2nd place.
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1966
1982
2002
2005
2007
2010
2011
2014
Development of the Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium site since 1966. This project will investigate future stages of this transformation.
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SCOPE and SUBMISSION Exploring the future transformation of Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium and its accompanying urban structures, the investigation will study a sequential process of development, over a broad time period. In its final submission, the project will focus on one particular iteration in detail, however, embedded within which, will be an understanding of a wider process of sequential development - gestures toward past and future transformations. It is the ambition of this project to explore the consequence of its architecture over a range of scales. With this in mind, the project will not pursue the very detailed architectural design of an entire scheme, rather it will concentrate its design specificity on appropriate moments of the proposal, which in some way represent and relate to an idea of the whole. With a sensitivity to the urban condition, an overall ‘masterplan’ will be proposed at 1:5000/1:1000. This scheme will then be explained through representation of specific moments and occasions, explored at a building scale at 1:50/1:200 and from a human perspective at approximately 1:20. The project’s development will be conveyed in the final submission through the content of a process book and accompanying blog. Due to the iterative and speculative nature of this study, the larger body of work holds remains significant, prompting further questioning and future directions.
Sectional programmatic collages Christopher Paxton, 2013
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WORKING METHOD The working method will be iterative; developed through a continuous process of observational, speculative and propositional architectural investigations. It will engage with the process of ‘making’ a drawing or model as a way of thinking or speculating about a new area of the project, but will remain open to a range of media. Each piece of work will be retained and recorded chronologically to generate a final process document. Alongside media-based investigations, writing about the project will be a highly complementary activity, providing a mechanism for developing theories, defining arguments and challenging ideas. An online blog will be used as the main platform for writing, for its immediacy and capacity to record comments and feedback. Accumulating references, precedents and key pieces of work, the blog will curate ideas, explained in writing. The project will engage further with representational methods that have already been developed in preliminary studies. In particular, the modelling of view cones to discuss a visual architectural language of framing, occluding, foreground, background and anamorphic imagery, and the overlaying and collage of drawings to explore hybrid programmes and multiple occupations over time. Similarly, it is hoped that, through experimentation, additional modes of appropriate representation will be developed. With specific sensitivity to the subject, conditions or phenomena they are investigating, representations will reveal more to the designer and communicate the project’s ideas more effectively to the viewer. Model assembling three obstructed viewpoints of the Kasimpasaspor football pitch Christopher Paxton, 2013
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[Refer to Appendix I: Viewpoint]
[Refer to Appendix I: Hybridisation]
APPENDICES
Panopticon Presidio Modelo Prison, Cuba, 1928 Inverse Panopticon? National Stadium, Warsaw, 2011 36
Stadia and The City
I. NARRATIVES
reverse panopticon condition. Canetti explains,
The following pages describe a series of architectural narratives that reveal intersections between the urban condition and the stadium or sporting logic; masses, viewpoint, medial space, ritual and hybridisation. In combination with the contexts discussed earlier, these themes will develop ideological, theoretical and tectonic strands to the project.
“The seats are arranged in tiers around the arena, so that everyone can see what is happening below. The consequence of this is that the crowd is seated opposite itself. Every spectator has a thousand in front of him, a thousand heads. As long as he is there, all the others are there too; whatever excites him, excites them; and he sees it. They are seated some distance away from him, so that differing details which make up individuals of them are blurred; they all look alike and they all behave in a similar manner and he notices in them only the things which he himself is full of. Their visible excitement increases his own.
MASSES In the staging of an event, stadia must act as architectural devices to somehow manage the filling up and emptying of the arena - a choreography of the masses. A stadium can be considered as being made up of two masses, that of the solid mass of the static structure and that of the flowing, temporal mass of the spectators, thus, the filling up of the stadium, completes the construction4. During the filling and emptying phases, it is important to distinguish between the crowd inside and outside the stadium. These contrasting conditions may be defined as ‘open’ and ‘closed’ crowds5: Outside, the open crowd is without limits, it grows, while inside, the closed crowd is now formalised within limits, its density and numbers controlled by the architecture. Spatial and architectural techniques such as the positioning and orientation of seats, the paths of circulation and the frequency and dimensions of entrances may be used to organise the movement of the crowd, with specific psychological and behavioural implications. The traditional arrangement of seats, informed by the optimal relation of spectator and actor, imposes a kind of
There is no break in the crowd which sits like this, exhibiting itself to itself. It forms a closed ring from which nothing can escape. (...) this crowd is doubly closed, to the world outside and in itself.6” This project will engage with the psychological and behavioural nature of both the crowd and the individual, in relation to the filling and emptying of the stadium, and concepts of its inside and outside. VIEWPOINT In the architectural design of the seating bowl, the stadium organises and disperses fixed viewpoints of an event, privileging the gaze of those with tickets and occluding the view of those without. Contemporary stadium design has perfected an optimised and increasingly standardised - ‘ideal’ - seating bowl plan, in which, as far as possible, a majority of spectators gain the best possible view - unobstructed, and
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tending towards the preferred distance and best possible angle. This effect is obvious at the Turk Telecom Arena and the Ataturk Olympic Stadium whose bowl plans similarly represent an optimised negotiation of the precise geometries and scale of the sporting pitch, the capacity of the human eye to perceive action from a certain distance within a specific field of view, understanding of comfortable seating dimensions and adequate access provisions. In contrast, the logic of viewpoints implemented in the planning and navigation of cities is radically different. Understood in such a way, it is possible to observe a more diverse, hierarchical architectural use of viewpoint. Urban planning techniques strategically privilege and celebrate key vistas to enable more effective orientation and to celebrate particular locations or buildings. Christopher Wren’s replanning of the City of London after the Great Fire persists as a key example of urban areas articulated by the dispersal and organisation of privileged viewpoints.
Considering how architecture may implement the privileging of views to instigate spatial hierarchy, it may be interesting to challenge the idealised seating bowl plan, in which sightlines are optimised. Spectator’s views may be framed, occluded, mirrored or directed to varying extents to give particular relevance to certain parts of the stadium’s audience. The precise articulation of what is seen in
Ideal seating bowl plan Turk Telecom Arena, Istanbul Plans for the rebuilding of the City of London after the Great Fire Christopher Wren, 1666 38
Stadia and The City
‘See 8 World Records broken with a single glance’ - Arrangement of the Olympic track and field for the privileging of a single spectator’s viewpoint Christopher Paxton, 2013
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An architecture determined by media Sketch from La Ville Radieuse, Le Corbusier, 1933 Broadcast of the sunrise Mediatisation of Tiananmen Square, Beijing, 2014 40
Stadia and The City
the background, beyond the game space, may be used to privilege certain seating locations. In this way, the architecture of spectators’ viewpoints becomes a way of altering the individual’s experience of the event and organising a spatial hierarchy within the stadium. MEDIAL SPACE Medial architecture refers to spaces that are in some way constructed through technical media, and as a consequence, whose events may be somehow affected by it7. Undoubtedly, the contemporary city is greatly influenced by media. Le Corbusier famously anticipated the increasing influence of media in his sketch of La Ville Radieuse, 1933. Here, the radical design of apartment blocks is solely characterised by the technical supply of telephone, water, gas and electricity. Wireless internet connection must now accompany these supplies as a form of media that decisively conditions many of the spaces we inhabit today. With recent advances in LED technology, large TV screens are perhaps the most effective material with which to construct medial space. In January 2014, giant LED walls were erected in Tiananmen Square, Beijing to display images of fake sunrises after the heavy smog engulfing the city occluded experience of the real one.
and sounds are sent here and there.. as spaces that find themselves between various places, times and persons8”. The architecture of the stadium must acknowledge that this spatial-geographic simultaneity instigates a contention between the spatial audience inside the arena and the medial structure of the TV viewers tuning in globally. While it was initially feared that the increasingly popular TV coverage of sporting events might negatively affect the numbers of spectators attending games, it seems the existence of both audiences remain mutually independent. If anything, television has motivated stadium attendance, by signalling the sporting event as a significant occasion and enabling the opportunity for fans to see themselves on camera. Around twenty-five different cameras are required for a so-called multi-lateral TV broadcast of a football match - arranged in various locations around the stadium, reflecting the nature of the action on the field and the interests of viewers. Such
Through the medium of television, and its popular coverage of sporting events, stadia must be recognised as significant medial spaces in contemporary architecture. In the images of live TV coverage we see a mediatised representation of the stadium and the action staged within it. In the sporting arena, medial space emerges “between different spatial and temporal overlaps and interactions, when pictures Diagram of camera positions during a multilateral football broadcast FIFA, 2006
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a mixture of viewpoints is a response to new cultures of viewing of sporting events. TV coverage of live events activates the curiosity of the flaneur-like sports fan, providing a multitude of camera angles, instant replays, endless information and statistics to become engrossed in; sacrificing a sense of coherence, but prioritising a fuller understanding of all aspects of the event. Decisively, the broadcast implements its own individual choreography, which fragments the unity of time, place and activity. Medial space offers expanded spatial and temporal parameters: While a football match may only last 90 minutes in one location, its TV coverage can extend the event to many millions of global viewers, over a much longer or shorter period of time. It must be noted that in broadcasting coverage of a football match, the media is not merely reporting on an event, rather, knowledge of the very presence of the media has the capacity to directly affect the actions occurring within a space. This
famously occurred at the Stadio Olympico, Rome after the 1990 World Cup Final. Here, the placement of large screens inside the stadium enabled the spatial audience to view TV coverage of the match that was also being simultaneously broadcast to the world. Close-up TV images showing the unpopular Argentinian player Diego Maradona crying after losing the game sparked loud whistles and boos inside the stadium, which were consequently captured and re-transmitted by the TV coverage, encouraging a further reaction from the crowd that was now aware of its own performance. In this way, through a real-time feedback loop, events inside the Stadio Olympico were determined by the mediatisation of the space inside the stadium. These events were then experienced by the global TV audience. RITUAL The presence of the stadium and the influence of the sporting event extend far beyond the perimeter of the pitch or gates at the turnstile. It is through spectator behaviour, the rituals and performances that comprise ‘going to the match’, encompassing the everyday spaces that both surround football stadia and make up journeys to and from them, that a wider, more diffuse area of the city is caught up in the regular staging of major sporting events in a specific location. For Istanbul’s football supporter culture a particular set of spaces emerge: metrostop platforms, cornershops, bufe (street vendors), kebab houses, dolmus buses, kiraathanesi (teahouses), meeting points, alleyways, mosques, taxi interiors. Architectural significance may be found in the spatial organisation of these sequences Maradona’s tears World Cup Final, Stadio Olympico, Rome, 1990
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Stadia and The City
and the paths between spaces. It must be noted that a series of rituals occur before and after the event, and are therefore conditioned in relation to its outcome - the football team’s triumph or defeat. For home fans, these ritualistic spaces and the habitual activities that occur within them contribute to a strong sense of belonging to a place - a feeling that Bale describes as a topophilia: “Occupation of the same spot over the years, the historical catalogue of dramatic events on the pitch, the smell of hot drinks and the waft of cigarette smoke, the jokes and the chants, and the whole rich panoply of successive shared events that become sedimented in the inhabitation of the stadium and the passage towards it9”.
Equally, the away supporters’ ‘topophobic’ experience may be unfamiliar and somewhat of a novelty, producing a completely different set of behavioural implications on the local urban environment. It is clear that alongside the seats, tiers, steps, gangways, club shop, ticket office and turnstile of the stadium, a range of everyday, ritualistic spaces form part of an overall spatial narrative that characterises the experience of viewing a sporting event. This project will explore how these specific ritualistic behaviours, occurring at the precise intervals of the football fixture list, may affect and be informed by complimentary or contradictory urban processes happening simultaneously.
Going To The Match LS Lowry, 1928
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HYBRIDISATION As a building of such specific function, it is possible to precisely map the hourly occupation of the Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium - daily, weekly and seasonally - see diagram above. In the staging of football matches in Kasimpasa, it is the football fixture list that precisely determines both the activity inside the stadium and various ritualistic behaviours that implicate a diffuse area surrounding the arena, as discussed in the previous chapter. Naturally, there lies an opportunity to speculate about the possible inhabitation
of the stadium outside of match times - to unlock the latent capacity of such a prominent urban structure and instigate a density of hybridised programmes. Concepts of double locality displayed in the layout of the Olympic track and field, may similarly be applied to a range of urban spaces and activities. Spatial organisation and hybrid programming may occur in relation to the particular timeframes of the sporting events staged at the Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium. On a grand scale, the hybridisation of sports stadia is already occurring at many contemporary arenas across the world, notably in the Sapporo Dome, Japan, 2001 A space occupied to the precise intervals of the Super Lig fixture list Chart showing matchday, gameweek and seasonal occupation of the Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium, Kasimpasa, Istanbul
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Stadia and The City
and Veltins Arena, Schalke, Germany, 2002. With the capacity to stage events for sports as diverse as football, baseball, biathlon and motor racing, as well as music concerts and other cultural events, the playing field really has become a contemporary junkspace, alongside Koolhaas’ example of the airport as a highly versatile structure capable of adjusting to whatever the market may newly demand and serviced by a population of loyal consumers10. Considering the particular context this project examines, it may also be appropriate to explore programmatic density on a smaller scale, applied to the many other spaces associated to the stadium - the seats, tiers, stairs, turnstiles, congregation areas, car parks, bars, cafes and shops. And indeed, at different timeframes - not only the extended period during the off-season, but also the shorter times between weekly matches and even between the kick off and final whistle of a particular game.
Double Localities IAAF Olympic Track and Field Fua Fua Adventure Funfair inside the Sapporo Dome sports stadium Sapporo Dome, Sapporo, Japan, 2009 Spring 2014
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II. EVOLUTION of stadia The stadium may be considered as an architectural translation of cultures of gathering and viewing public events, their timely evolution subject to a complex mix of political, sociological, technological and ideological shifts. Spaces for sporting events and their mass public viewing have existed in Europe since antiquity; initially as ancient Greek stadions staging the agon - a sporting, cultic and political event - and later, in the freestanding Roman circuses and amphitheatres, designed specifically for racing or violent, physical competitions. These sites were at the centre of municipal life. Interestingly, construction of buildings for sporting events has been rarely documented in the following medieval period, only as temporary timber constructions for various equestrian events happening in city squares. It was not until the 18th Century,
when professional sports were formalised and singularised, that specific venues for their playing and viewing were constructed - the Arena on the Champs De Mars, Paris, 1790 is widely acknowledged as the first modern stadium11. Perhaps stadium architecture evolved most dramatically in the late 20th Century, when professional sporting competition became
Racetrack at the centre of the Agora Athens 500 BC ‘First modern stadium’ Arena, Champ de Mars, Paris, 1790 46
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commercialised due to its increasing popularity, leading to a proliferation of stadium construction, designed specifically for many kinds of sports. In football stadiums, seats and roofs were added in an attempt to reduce violence and encourage a less aggressive, more family-friendly atmosphere, attracting a broader range of fans; no longer only working-class males, but also the post-Fordist family. Contemporary architectural practice is now faced with many hypermodern conditions affecting the design of stadia. The progressive commercialisation of our living space has resulted in a privatisation of our public space, a condition which exists inside and in the immediate vicinity of the stadium at the time of an event. With large sporting and cultural occasions now almost entirely controlled by private investors, sponsors and the media, inherent in all stadium design is the territorialisation and defence of a hierarchical, ticketed space, exclusively for customers. There are also changing spectator motives, namely, the fans’ increasing curiosity for a more complete understanding of the action, enabled by comprehensive TV coverage and mobile internet applications. Also technological advances, such as the feasibility of large scale temporary
LED screens which have enabled ‘public viewing’, meaning congregational spaces for the viewing of sporting events no longer depend on geographical proximity. Increasingly, new stadium proposals are conceived as part of bids to stage megaevents, such as Olympic Games, World Cups and International Fairs. As significant structures in these ventures, stadiums are required to serve as symbolic landmarks, presenting an image of the city to a global audience. Similarly, the idea of an iconic stadium is implemented in city politics as a tool to clearly communicate planning goals, gain consensus and drive large scale urban renewal projects. Von Borries writes, “The leitmotif of urban planning over the last fifteen years has been the theme park. The city, as an object of consumerist desire, becomes a more or less successful brand.. Within the development of its marketable images and postcard pictures, architecture assumes an important role, and architects are the set designers of this scenarization of the city12”. It may be argued, then, that the most significant function of the contemporary stadium is to act as a symbol, to transcend its immediate locality and communicate more widely on a civic and often global scale.
Global icon of the 2020 Olympic Games Olympic Stadium, Tokyo, Zaha Hadid Architects, 2013 Public Viewing Berlin 2006 Spring 2014
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III. FOOTball in ISTANBUL “The kick-off in an Istanbul derby - between Galatasaray, Fenerbahce or Besiktas - is said not just to start a football match, but also ‘pause life for 90 minutes’ in the whole of Turkey.13” The popularity of football in Turkey can be overwhelming, affecting all parts of daily life, media and society. Turkish football supporters are notoriously fanatical and antagonistic towards their rivals, particularly in Istanbul where areas of tribal support around its four major clubs - Galatasaray, Fenerbahce, Besiktas and Kasimpasaspor - invisibly territorialise the city. Yet football is not just a hugely popular competitive sport but also a major social and political force. National and European competition has had the effect of mobilising and civilising a rapidly
Galatasaray
Fenerbahce
evolving society, eroding parochialism, encouraging cultural exchange and transgressing the regional boundaries of a large, diverse country. These progressive social effects mean football stadiums have considerable cultural potential as social spaces of freedom, experimentation and civic identity. “Most people never come into contact with the Customs Union or the EU accession talk, but millions of fans live through their favourite team’s journey to succeed on the European stage - week in, week out. It should not be an overstatement to say that, for many, football is one of their country’s most important gateways into Europe.14” Perhaps stadia are the most visible and vital built structures in Istanbul today. After a summer of anti-government protests, football stadia, alongside university campuses, have become significant incubators of civic political sentiment. Unusually, it was opposing fans of Istanbul’s
Kasimpasaspor
Besiktas Football Supporter Territories Wider Istanbul Region
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Stadia and The City
Turk Telecom Arena Galatasaray Ataturk Olympic Stadium Istanbul Büyükşehir Belediyespor
Recep Tayyip Erdogan Stadium Kasimpasaspor
Inonu Stadium Besiktas
Sukru Saracoglu Stadium Fenerbahce
Key Stadium Buildings Istanbul Metropolitan Area
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Away fixtures for Istanbul’s football clubs in the Turkish Super Lig, 2013-2014 Away fixtures for Turkish Football Clubs in European Competition, 2011-2013 50
Stadia and The City
typically antagonistic rival clubs that came together as Istanbul United to mobilise the protests at Taksim Square, revealing an entanglement of football and politics. Through the popular TV coverage of football matches, the stadium becomes a form of mediatised architecture, a space of mass congregation whose events are highly visible and widely communicated. It is no surprise that Istanbul’s football stadia are now subject to recent legislation aimed at depoliticisation; participation in demonstrations that could “trigger mass, political or ideological events15” has been banned inside stadia since July 2013. This development is not without a twist of irony as the sport has long been exploited by the political elite to garner support and social prestige, and as a lever to move the country towards EU membership. In 2000, as Galatasaray strode towards victory in the European Cup, the Turkish Minister for Sport and Youth remarked “the success of Galatasaray would be an important step in Turkey’s accession to Europe.16” While there are certain negative aspects to the Turkish game relating to dangerous fanaticism, political corruption and clientelism, football remains a progressive social force in the country, mobilising people, encouraging cultural exchange and cultivating civic and political identity. This project will interpret the architectural implications of this specific context through the design of a football stadium, revealing the latent potentials of such a vital urban component in the city of Istanbul.
Tayyip, Do You Know? Anti-government protest poster by Istanbul football fans, June 2013
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IV. CV EDUCATION Afd 2, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture, Denmark Master of Arts in Architecture, MA, 2012-2014 University of Bath, UK Bachelor of Sciences in Architecture, BSc (Hons), RIBA Part I, 2007-2011
WORK EXPERIENCE Grimshaw Architects, London, UK Architectural Assistant, 2011-2012, 2013 Tham & Videg책rd Arkitekter, Stockholm, Sweden Architectural Assistant, 2010 Weal Architects, Welwyn, UK Architectural Assistant, 2009, 2010
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Madrazo, L (1995) The Concept of Type in Architecture Dissertation, ETH, Zurich - p.337
2.
Soucek, A / Tabor, J (2008) Stadiums of the Masses. Edited and published in: Wimmer, A/Rothauer, D (2008) Stadiums - Marketplaces of the Future. Springer Wien New York - p. 134.
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“Turkey: Beyond The Silk Road”. MINT: The Next Economic Giants. BBC. 9 January 2014. Television.
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Soucek, A / Tabor, J (2008) Stadiums of the Masses. Edited and published in: Wimmer, A/Rothauer, D (2008) Stadiums - Marketplaces of the Future. Springer Wien New York
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Canetti, E (1960) Crowds and Power. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. New York
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Schnell, A (2010) The Mirror Stage in The Stadium. Published in: Frank, S / Steets, S (2010) Stadium Worlds. Routledge. London - p. 98.
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Bale, J (1993) ‘The Spatial Development of The Modern Stadium’. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 28 - p.121.
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Koolhaas, R (2006) Junkspace. OMA. Rotterdam.
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Kratzmuller, B (2010) ‘Show Yourself to the People!’ Published in: Frank, S / Steets, S (2010) Stadium Worlds. Routledge. London - p. 52.
12.
von Borries, F (2005) Who’s Afraid of Niketown?: Nike-urbanism, Branding and the City of Tomorrow. Episode, Rotterdam.
13,14. Amani, A. 19 July 2013. Football in Turkey: A Force for Liberalisation and Modernity. Sourced from: www. opendemocracy.net (accessed on 5 January 2014) 15. Peker, E / Parkinson, J. 8 August 2013. Soccer Politics Reaches Fever Pitch. Wall Street Journal. Sourced from: http://www.realclearsports. com/2013/08/08/soccer_politics_ reaches_fever_pitch_113891 (accessed on 18 January 2014) 16.
Erdogdu, V “Turkey,” Soccer Politics Pages. Sourced from: http://sites. duke.edu/wcwp (accessed on 10 January 2014)
bibliography Books and Articles -
Madrazo, L (1995) The Concept of Type in Architecture. Dissertation, ETH, Zurich
-
Wimmer, A/Rothauer, D (2008) Stadiums - Marketplaces of the Future. Springer Wien New York
-
Canetti, E (1960) Crowds and Power. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. New York
-
Bale, J (1993) ‘The Spatial Development of The Modern Stadium’. International Review for
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the Sociology of Sport, 28 -
Koolhaas, R (2006) Junkspace. OMA. Rotterdam
-
von Borries, F (2005) Who’s Afraid of Niketown?: Nike-urbanism, Branding and the City of Tomorrow. Episode, Rotterdam.
-
Gokturk, D / Soysal, L / Tureli, I (2010) Orientating Istanbul: Cultural Capital of Europe? Routledge London.
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John, G / Sheard, R / Vickery, B (2013) Stadia: The Populous Design and Development Guide, 5th Edition. Routledge London
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Marg, V (2012) Choreography of The Masses. Akademie Der Kunst, Jovis Berlin.
Internet Sources -
Amani, A. 19 July 2013. Football in Turkey: A Force for Liberalisation and Modernity. Sourced from: www. opendemocracy.net (accessed on 5 January 2014)
-
Peker, E / Parkinson, J. 8 August 2013. Soccer Politics Reaches Fever Pitch. Wall Street Journal. Sourced from: http://www.realclearsports. com/2013/08/08/soccer_politics_ reaches_fever_pitch_113891 (accessed on 18 January 2014)
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Erdogdu, V “Turkey,” Soccer Politics Pages. Sourced from: http://sites. duke.edu/wcwp (accessed on 10 January 2014)
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Ward, S. In Erdogan’s Kasimpasa, Everyman’s a Strongman. Sourced from: http://2013.istanbulstories. net/pisti/ (accessed 14 Janury 2014)
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Lawrence, D. Where Turkish Politics Meets Football: AKP’s Offside Goal Against the Carsi. Sourced from: www.opendemocracy.net/caneurope-make-it/derya-lawrence/ where-turkish-politics-meetsfootball-akps-offside-goal-against%C3%A7a (accessed 16 January 2014)
TV Programmes -
“Turkey: Beyond The Silk Road”. MINT: The Next Economic Giants. BBC. 9 January 2014. Television.