Democratic Maracanã
1.Name the condition of disrespect in the city your project aims to address. The disrespect I have highlighted is the homogenous use of the Maracanã site. It is a fantastic space that is used for the global and national sporting spectacle. The site is a complex site with indigenous community who have been evicted, a school, and other sporting sites that are abandoned in order to retain security. The Disrespect si that people are excluded from the site as intense security is manifested in increased police presence and fencing. The stadium itself has lost the sections of seating that once hosted the less affluent city residents.
2. Explain how the design or intervention would be created. The removal of fencing and a rethink of the programme would be replicable across the city, many city spaces have a similar condition of being enclosed and privatised leading to underused public spaces. Money would be needed to complete physical works to re-appropriate the stadium into a public use. Connecting the station to the surrounding communities and the stadium in a more ‘Rio’ way would allow for the ‘Rio’ way of transport infrastructure meeting everyday life.
3. Tell us how the design or intervention creates respect. By removing the barriers between the stadium’s space and people would restore a balance and allow the space to be one of democracy and respect. Diverse people groups could once again inhabit this space and restore respect of local cultures from the globalisation and economic barriers that exist for spectators in the site. Multi use of the site such as food markets would encourage all sectors of society in the city to engage in public life and show respect to one another.
Luke Kon I am currently a student on the MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design course at the University of Cambridge; at the moment I am based in Rio de Janeiro for fieldwork researching the legacy of the Olympic Games and other recent Mega-events. My involvement has been to speculate on the way different communities could re-inhabit the Maracanã site.
