Candid Comment - The Big Oooooh - Montreal Olympic Stadium

 

As it is known, the big O is Montreal's Stade Olympique, the 1.6 Billion dollar structure that draws awe and derision. Why is that? After all, the stadium still gets used today, though no significant tenant hosts events there. The Montreal Alouettes play at a different location, and the Expos became the Nationals and headed to Washington to become the Nationals. Some soccer events are held there; you can see a concert there. So what is the fuss? Why is this place considered beautiful and ugly at the same time? The answer lies in the fact that the stadium needed to be better built. Specifically, the roof. It has torn thousands of times and can not be trusted to hold 1.2 inches or about 3 Centimetres of water from rain or a significant show fall. In short, it was poorly built. Yet it is considered the 3rd most popular place for tourists visiting Quebec.

My take on this, it's a joke and a bad one at that. Besides the roof problems, there is the concrete issue; there have been several incidents where slabs have fallen. The tower, also a feature of the stadium, is the tallest inclined structure in the world; it has had a fire, and the cost ballooned to a point where it took 30  years to pay for the work. And what did Montrealers end up with? This, 

take a close look. What do you see? Take a real close look. It was designed by Roger Taillibert, a French architect. What is supposed to be a circular design looks more like a toilet bowl.

I believe the French architect who designed the stadium was trying to send a message to Quebec. Your not like us; you're not even close to being like us. Since the 60s, Quebec has attempted to assert itself as distinct, specifically along its cultural makeup. The 70s saw the rise of separatism, and in 76, the PQ came to power, and ever since then, Quebec has been drastically altered. During this time, Jean Drapeau, the mayor of Montreal, was busy coming up with big projects like the Montreal Metro and Expo 67. He also decided to throw Montreal into the hat for the Olympics in 76. Well, Montreal got them.

The point was to showcase Montreal and Quebec as modern, developed, and worldly.  It was anything but superb.  Canada did not win a Gold medal; 29 countries boycotted the games, and Quebec's provincial flag was spotted during the closing ceremony.  It's illegal to fly a flag more prominent than the Olympic flag and one not from a country; Quebec is not a country.  I can not compare this with the Hitler Olympics, but the idea was to show a modern French Quebec, an independent pseudo-country.  That did not turn out to be the case at all.  The creator of the stadium may have had a gut feeling Quebec was going for it. They wanted to show themselves off as a country.  So, he created this monstrosity to reflect his thoughts on the matter.  And what you see is this giant toilet in the middle of Montreal.

The term monstrosity is strong.  I have been in the stadium once.  It was for an Alouettes game back in the '70s.  From the ground, it looks impressive and really cool looking. It's not so remarkable when you see it from above, like in the above photo.  For this reason, there is both love and hate for this building.  The kicker is that this blunder will still be standing decades into the future, a reminder that Quebec is not France 2.0 and is still and probably will be for a long time to come a pseudo country, nothing more, nothing less. 

Thankfully, there are some positives.  The stadium has been paid for, and it is, as noted, still used and, in the past, has been put to good use.  The Sun reports that there has been some good usage of the facility, though it is still one of the most notable for what went wrong and the lingering effects. So enjoy if you want; just don't go near there during snow storms or rain, and be aware of the possibility of falling concrete.