NB: not the best at night photography so sorry for the poor quality
At the start of the year I was visiting Rome with some friends to study the architecture of the city and so when we learned of an abandoned Nervi stadium we couldn't pass up the opportunity to check it out.
The Stadium, “Stadio Flaminio”, was designed by Pier Luigi Nervi and his son Antonio Nervi in 1957 for the Olympic games in Rome in 1960. It was primarily built to accommodate football matches, serving as the venue for the Olympic football final, however there was also a swimming pool and rooms for various sports such as fencing, weightlifting, amateur wrestling, boxing and gymnastics. Michael Jackson, David Bowie and Pink Floyd all performed sellout concerts at the stadium in later years but it soon fell into disrepair and was left abandoned.
The Stadium served as a defining moment in Nervi’s career in demonstrating his innovative use of concrete via a mixture of prefabricated and cast in situ elements, not to mention the incredible structural feat of cantilevering the large roofs which covered the stands.
Not entirely knowing the laws of the country or how the local enforcement responded to trespassing we decided to go at nightfall after spending the day in the nearby park of Villa Borghese.
After struggling over various fences and hunting for a way in we eventually found our way up to some creaky metal stairs and was greeted by the view of the massive stadium, overgrown and rusted.
At the start of the year I was visiting Rome with some friends to study the architecture of the city and so when we learned of an abandoned Nervi stadium we couldn't pass up the opportunity to check it out.
The Stadium, “Stadio Flaminio”, was designed by Pier Luigi Nervi and his son Antonio Nervi in 1957 for the Olympic games in Rome in 1960. It was primarily built to accommodate football matches, serving as the venue for the Olympic football final, however there was also a swimming pool and rooms for various sports such as fencing, weightlifting, amateur wrestling, boxing and gymnastics. Michael Jackson, David Bowie and Pink Floyd all performed sellout concerts at the stadium in later years but it soon fell into disrepair and was left abandoned.
The Stadium served as a defining moment in Nervi’s career in demonstrating his innovative use of concrete via a mixture of prefabricated and cast in situ elements, not to mention the incredible structural feat of cantilevering the large roofs which covered the stands.
Not entirely knowing the laws of the country or how the local enforcement responded to trespassing we decided to go at nightfall after spending the day in the nearby park of Villa Borghese.
After struggling over various fences and hunting for a way in we eventually found our way up to some creaky metal stairs and was greeted by the view of the massive stadium, overgrown and rusted.
Unfortunately, we agreed to limit our use of flash and torches on the exterior of the building due to seeing a police officer chilling in the carpark outside so the photos were suboptimal.
In exploring the stands we came across the announcer’s booth, full glass lit up from the city behind.
While mostly vandalised, and almost falling apart, there were still a few old server trollies and equipment.
After taking in the outside of the stadium we ventured into the structure itself, to try and find the swimming pool.
After briefly losing each other in the maze of dark hallways and empty rooms we came across a large empty room with a sloping roof that we figured must have been the swimming pool. Concrete was poured in the floor with timber formwork still present and steel reinforcing cable poking out leading us to believe that construction work may have been attempted in the past to try and rescue the stadium from disrepair.
Delving deeper we found a few claustrophobic subterranean tunnels that spread out in a network under the pitch, possibly for drainage.
On leaving we noticed a much easier way in right next to the fences we had scaped ourselves on leading to a quite a few facepalms.
After the successful night, we enjoyed a massive meal at a nearby restaurant and then stumbled through a variety of wrong busses to our hotel happy and very, very drunk.
Thanks for reading
