Olimpiysky Sports Complex

The Olimpiysky Sports Complex, on the avenue of the same name in Moscow's Meshchansky District, long remained one of the largest indoor sports and entertainment venues in Europe: until the opening of the Paris La Défense Arena in 2017, the Moscow stadium held the title of the continent's largest indoor stadium. The complex combined an oval indoor arena building with a building housing swimming pools, both of which became symbols of the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

The building was erected in just two and a half years on the site of the former “Burevestnik” stadium, specifically for the XXII Summer Olympic Games, hosted by Moscow in 1980. Construction began in the autumn of 1977 and was completed in the spring of 1980 by the Glavmospromstroy collective under the direction of engineer V. I. Nadezhdin. A large team of specialists from several institutes worked on the architectural design, headed by M. V. Posokhin, and Posokhin, B. I. Tkhor, and L. S. Aranauskas received the Lenin Prize for this work.

The diameter of the stadium's main bowl was 183 meters, and of its base section 224 meters, while the structure's height reached 40 meters, with a total arena area of 33,000 square meters; the whole complex occupied nearly 55,000 square meters. The membrane roof, only 6 millimeters thick, was supported by a reinforced-concrete ring resting on forty-meter columns with no intermediate supports, allowing the stands to hold up to 35,000 spectators, while the arena's surface could be changed for a specific sport — from a running track to an ice rink. During the Olympics the convertible arena hosted competitions in several disciplines simultaneously, in different sectors of the same hall.

After the Games, the building became the city's main concert and sports venue: it hosted the finals of “Fabrika Zvyozd” (Star Factory), performances by world pop stars, and major tournaments in team sports. However, by the late 2010s the complex had fallen into disrepair, and on January 1, 2019, the stadium was closed for a large-scale reconstruction; the swimming pool ceased operating the same year. Demolition of the main arena began on March 3, and by December 25, 2020, the historic building had been completely dismantled, together with the pool building.

The design for the renewed complex, developed with the participation of the Polish firm APA Wojciechowski together with Russian architects, envisions a multifunctional space of about 850,000 square meters with a concert hall, sports and retail zones, a cinema cluster, and dozens of venues for more than a hundred sports. Construction extends across several underground levels, with the new above-ground part reaching a height of about 41 meters, and completion of the work is planned for the second half of the 2020s.

The history of “Olimpiysky” reflects the fate of many sports facilities of the Soviet era: from a symbol of the country's international prestige in 1980 to a venue completely rebuilt for modern formats of leisure and sport. Even during reconstruction, the complex remains a significant point on the city map and one of the largest development projects in the Russian capital in recent years.