resisting the ruin

Resisting the RuinAuthor(s): Julian RoseSource: Log, No. 9 (Winter/Spring 2007), pp. 87-89Published by: Anyone CorporationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41765138 .

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Julian Rose

Resisting the Ruin

The columns supporting Gerkan, Marg & Partners' new roof for Berlin's Olympic Stadium are ALIGNED WITH THE STONE-CLAD columns of Albert Speer' s original building. All photos: Julian Rose.

1. David Leggat, "Football: Outrage at Hitler Stadium Insult; Nazi Echoes Could Sink German Bid," The People , December 20, 1998. 2. Tony Paterson, "Olympic Stadium's £158 Million Facelift Wipes out Nazi 'Ghosts,'" The Independent, July 29, 2004.

Ask most soccer fans today to name the greatest controversy of the 2006 World Cup and they would likely point to French star Zinedine Zidane's head-butt of the Italian player Marco Materazzi in the final minutes of overtime during the final match on July 9. But Zidane's antics and the subsequent media furor overshadowed another, deeper World Cup controversy that had begun stirring years before. This one concerned not the players but a stadium in which they would play.

Germany's 1998 bid to host the tournament had been

plagued with controversy from the start. The problem was the proposed location. With Berlin as the host city, the opening ceremony and final game would be held in the same stadium in which Adolf Hitler had presided over the 1 936 Olympics. Several teams spoke of refusing to play in the venue because of its historical associations, and heated public debates about the use of the stadium erupted in the interna- tional press. A 1998 British headline bluntly captured the sentiment of many opposed to its use: "Football: Outrage at Hitler Stadium Insult; Nazi Echoes Could Sink German Bid."1

Just as the stadium was the focal point of the controversy, however, it also became the key to the eventual success of the German bid. Germany was ultimately chosen, contingent on

plans for an extensive renovation and remodeling of the stadium. As the renovation proceeded over the next six years, public opinion about Germany hosting the World Cup under- went a dramatic reversal. The extent of the project's success was featured in a 2004 headline: "Olympic Stadium's £158 Million Facelift Wipes out Nazi 'Ghosts. '"2

What was the nature of the architectural renovation that allowed it to seemingly neutralize the building's negative historical associations?

The most iconic aspect of the original structure is its

imposing granite facade, designed by Albert Speer. Speer and Hitler had chosen to encase the building in granite because the stone held what they called "ruin value": it would allow the building to survive for thousands of years as a historical ruin and perpetual monument to the Third Reich. One

might think, then, that the stone facade would be the first

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The new roof rings the stadium, BUT LEAVES AN OPENING FOR VIEWS OF THE HISTORIC BELLTOWER AT THE Marathon Gate.

target for revision, but the German architects Gerkan, Marg & Partners won the 1998 competition to renovate the stadium largely because their design proposed minimal interference with the original structure. The renovation included numerous upgrades, but the main project was to add a roof to the originally uncovered stadium (removing the partial covering built in the 1970s).

The new roof is almost invisible from the exterior. Its

height is minimized at the outer edges so that the roof structure barely extends above the parapet of the stadium. The entire roof rests on only 20 steel columns, each with a slim

profile of less than 10 inches. The additional structure neces-

sary to support the roof's dramatic cantilever is concealed beneath Speer's granite facade at the outer edge of the stadium. This ensures minimal obstruction of spectator views and creates the impression that the roof is simply lightly resting on the building. Perhaps most important, the roof, rather than forming a continuous ring, is open at one end, allowing for views of the monumental bell tower at the stadium's west, or Marathon, gate.

For all of its subtlety, the architects clearly did not intend the material vocabulary of the new roof to blend in with the existing building. The entire roof is constructed of

lightweight steel members supporting a translucent mem- brane. The steel and composite fabric are in clear opposition to the original structure: modern against Speer's neoclassical

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Twenty steel columns support THE LIGHTWEIGHT ROOF. THE Olympic rings are suspended BETWEEN TWO TOWERS MARKING THE MAIN ENTRANCE.

Julian Rose works for the architecture office Lewis. Tsurumaki. Lewis in New York City.

style, light and light -filled against his heavy and opaque stone. The roof thus finds a kind of ideal coexistence with the original building that is neither deferential to the original structure and its ideological associations nor destructive of its architectural and historic identity. The work simulta- neously preserves the stadium's character and radically updates it for use today.

Some might argue against any renovation or restoration of the stadium at all. But in a sense, to abandon the aging stadium and construct new sports facilities elsewhere in Berlin - as some city officials proposed after Berlin lost its bid for the 2000 Olympics - would have been to fulfill Hitler and Speeds vision of a ruin. The controversy over the stadium's reuse for the World Cup centered, after all, on its status as a historical symbol, but what is a ruin if not the closest architecture comes to pure historical symbol? The ultimate strength of the Gerkan, Marg & Partners design is that it denies the building its intended status as a ruin, even as it preserves its historical character. GMP's clever intervention allows history not to disappear but to fade into the back- ground of the building's use in the 21st century. By the time the World Cup began last June, the attention of the public and the media was where it should have been: on the games, the players, and on Zidane's head-butt of Materazzi.

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resisting the ruin

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