Only one bid on fixing the stadium roof
Death, taxes and the stadium roof: only one firm has made a bid to fix it, this time around. It’s clear that very few construction firms want to get entangled in the perennial shitshow that is the roof of the Olympic stadium.
Douglas 20:20 on 2020-07-02 Permalink
One of the worst real estate deals in North America. Is there anything worst than this building?
Kate 20:28 on 2020-07-02 Permalink
The stadium is a stunning thing, Douglas. Go stand right next to it sometime. It will do things to you.
I admit, it was a completely impractical design with a roof concept based on an engineering solution that didn’t exist yet, and probably still doesn’t, because that open top and tower is one of a kind and somebody will have to reinvent the wheel to make it work.
But if Drapeau had settled for something like the Maurice Richard arena writ large, we’d have a dull, hideous scar on that part of the city. Instead, we have that mad brutalist folly, and I love it.
Max 23:17 on 2020-07-02 Permalink
I fear you’re in the minority, Kate. Most of us Montrealers would be glad to see the corpse of Roger what’s-his-face swaying off the yard-arm of the Olympic tower. It’s an embarrassment to architecture, what he did. That ignorant puke did to our fair city much wrong. Rot in hell, M. Taillbert.
Dhomas 23:35 on 2020-07-02 Permalink
I like the Olympic stadium. There, I said it.
As impractical as it may be, it is a sight to behold. And since they renovated it for the new tenants, it looks even better with its new floor to ceiling windows.
Faiz imam 06:10 on 2020-07-03 Permalink
I’ll put myself on the record too, The Olympic Stadium is one of the most beautiful structures in the city.
EmilyG 07:56 on 2020-07-03 Permalink
I like the Olympic Stadium.
It’s a nice design and I like how it can be seen from many places.
dwgs 08:07 on 2020-07-03 Permalink
It’s pretty to look at and a complete failure in terms of what it is supposed to actually do.
Kevin 08:39 on 2020-07-03 Permalink
It’s our monument to corruption, and as long as it exists reminds us that our governments continue to get fleeced (and are fleecing us).
JaneyB 11:01 on 2020-07-03 Permalink
I also love the…entity. It’s a stunning piece of architecture that is wildly impractical and brazenly unfixable. It and its mad, mad history and the way it somehow continues to generate new improbabilities and outrageousness crystallize a lot of what could be called ‘Montreal-ness’, writ small. I could swear it is alive. Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia crawls toward completion like a glacier but the Big O, complete as a stadium aspires to express its true nature as…something else.
Ian 11:05 on 2020-07-03 Permalink
There is something exciting and frivolous about it, and its sheer immensity is pretty breathtaking. It also photographs well.
That said it was a ludicrous waste of money and a bit of a white elephant. When I first came to Montreal in the 80s when there was still an extra tax on cigarettes to help pay off the big O, my local guide pointed toward it and said “You see that building that looks like a toilet? That’s the Olympic Stadium. We call it the toilet bowl because so much money was flushed down it”.
Kate 11:09 on 2020-07-03 Permalink
Ian, if this article from 2005 is correct, the Quebec government has never stopped collecting the cigarette tax. Have you ever known a government to end a revenue source when they’ve become accustomed to it? Income tax was only supposed to help finance World War I…
DeWolf 11:47 on 2020-07-03 Permalink
I’m with Kate. It’s a spectacular building. And for all its faults, it will outlive every last taxpayer who grumbles about how much it cost.
Kevin 18:44 on 2020-07-03 Permalink
@Dewolf
Only because we keep spending $30 million each year on maintenance.
GC 18:45 on 2020-07-03 Permalink
I also like the look of it. However, it sure would be nice if we could get a proper roof on it that only needs normal upkeep for the next forty years or whatever. And then maybe the stadium part of the stadium could get more use?
Francesco 21:54 on 2020-07-04 Permalink
More “Organic Modernist” than Brutalist. Roger Tailliberts got quite a bit of influence from Swiss architect and futurist HR Giger
Francesco 22:03 on 2020-07-04 Permalink
Max, I think you are in the minority. The design itself is a masterpiece and from all angles still looks avant-garde today. There is no argument that it’s a symbol of corruption and greed and narcissism, that is one big waste, and it is inherently a terrible civic structure with myriad problems. It was dank and uninviting even when new, and as a venue it was already outdated when it opened. Virtually every “multipurpose stadium” built from the mid-60s to the mid-80s has been decommissioned or demolished; Stade Olympique and SkyDome are among the exceptions, but only the Big O deserves to be left standing because of its architectural beauty. Stating that it is an “embarrassment to architecture” couldn’t be further from reality.