New Bernabeu

Thread to discuss the renovated Bernabeu, if anyone's interested.

Anyone been closely following the works? Any thoughts on the design, architecture, economics, functionality, etc?

I've been following closely ever since they had the competition back around 2011 or 2012 amongst 4 renowned architecture firms to see who would win the privilege to redesign the Bernabeu. I always generally liked the preliminary concept that they ended up going for but it's obviously changed a lot (to those who pay attention) over the years. I like the design because I think it generally falls under the type of minimalist, modernist, "deconstructivist" aesthetics and sensibilities that I am a big fan of in architecture and design. Looks like something Frank Gehry or Zaha Hadid could have drawn up and I very much like that from outside it doesn't necessarily look like a "Football stadium."

To me the New Bernabeu looks mammoth, austere, and pretentious, and to me those sensibilities and vibes go well with the image and history of the club and the building speaks to me as resembling more a museum or art establishment complex than a stadium, which again, I like. Although I do have to highlight that since the project is a redesign project rather than a rebuild, the possibilities for what the New Bernabeu could be were significantly limited from the beginning. Only so much you could do without spending too much money and the city government and ordinances and surrounding buildings were always going to severely limit the possibilities. In a way the new design is pretty generic and cliche, it's "just" a "modern", "futurist"-looking amoeba shape of which the Football stadium world is littered with at this point.

Ultimately there's generally one big problem I have with the design as it's turned out, and that is that on the main facade (the west side) the designers opted to design the look of the facade as to separate the steel panels from each other TOO much and that results in the front steel facade looking more like a very transparent curtain made out of fish bones rather than a clean steel enclosure with just some tasteful transparency as the stadium does pull off on the south and east facades (the north end has no transparency whatsoever and arguably works the best for my tastes).

Simply put...that western facade looks shitty imo.



The topic of that specific facade and its steel panels has been a topic of a lot of contention in the two Spanish forums dedicated to the stadium that I frequent. A lot of people hate how it looks and apparently the club doesn't fully like it either, which is why for the past month (they're going very slowly) they've been getting a lot of those steel panels ready to take off and ship off as they will reformat them so that their inclination away from each other is less dramatic and so that the resulting overly transparent look is minimized.

Who knows how it will end up though as it looks like they're replacing a lot of the steel panels on the bottom portion of the facade but haven't even touched a lot of the fucked up ones on the upper portion and I would think they would have to as it would look uneven. Depending the on the distance, angle, and lighting from which you see the stadium the look of the enveloping skin looks different. Often times from up in the sky under a certain lighting THE WHOLE stadium looks transparent in a way that doesn't necessarily fully convince me BUT, it's that main facade that really isn't working for me.



Im some lighting and from some distances it does look fine, but it should work in all conditions imo and I don't think that facade does.

Anyways...

Any thoughts on this?





A few months ago when the first images in the night came out the New Bernabéu became a laughing stock on Twitter and Youtube, and I think it looks god awful like that. The club says it's still waiting to execute a 15 million euro+ investment on interior and exterior lighting that will help alleviate the cage/basket effect that the Bernabeu has.

Additionally, during the day it still has that effect nonetheless, and that won't change unless they continue changing the steel panels on the upper section of the main facade. Which at this point they probably won't, excuses including that the stadium needs ventilation, that the panels are inclined like that to prevent glare, and that they're also open like that to let people see the exterior from the interior. There's also issues with budgeting and costs that more changes would probably incur and the architectural firm that designed this would also have to agree (apparently) on things for Madrid to be able to keep making changes.

I have faith that during the night they'll likely come to some acceptable conclusion, but during the day it's horrendous imo, particularly the main facade of el paseo de la castellana.