Sports complexes that build identity - Busch-Jaeger Elektro GmbH

But perhaps the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban wins
in the competition of the three gmp buildings. A 104meter-high
arch that forks in the direction of the city supports
the roof, with the pressure ring completing the façade
acting as a counter bearing. A tension ring clamped in
position gathers together the suspended cables and acts
as the outer limit of the roof's membrane skin.
Basic services for the population
The subsequent use of buildings hosting major events is
also a crucial issue for stadiums, with their horrendous
construction costs. The concept for the stadiums in South
Africa, whose upper sections can be removed, includes
soccer, rugby, and concerts. The stadium in Durban has a
specific subsequent use in the tourist sector, for there is a
cable car that goes up to the viewing point on top of the
large arch over the building. The logic is clear: When
sports venues serve as urban generators and drivers of
city branding, they are also attractive to many visitors,
who help maintain the building with their entrance fees.
It was for the same reason that a café was included at the
top of Zaha Hadid's elegantly curving Bergisel Ski Jump
near Innsbruck, which is used all year round, while the
jump itself is only in the international spotlight for one
day a year during the Four Hills Tournament. The new ski
jump at Garmisch-Partenkirchen by the Munich-based
studio terrain: loehnhart & mayr is also accessible to the
public. Here, the architects sought to achieve a sculptural
structure that references the topography, but that can
nevertheless be understood as a sports machine. However,
in the field of sports architecture, buildings for major
events are only the tip of the iceberg. For a start, sport is a
mass phenomenon from which individual outstanding
talents develop. Swimming, athletics, and soccer are the
most popular sports, and building venues for them is virtually
a public service for the population. Swimming
pools in particular are often seen by communes as burdens
– we are more likely to hear about closures and conversions
into water parks financed by private individuals
than new swimming pools. One of the rare examples of a
new indoor pool is in Biberach, an expressive building
designed by 4a Architekten from Stuttgart, in which the
load-bearing concrete structure, deliberately left in its
raw state, forms an effective contrast to the individual
color accents. At the same time as this project, one of the
most spectacular pool complexes of recent times was
being built in Le Havre, namely Jean Nouvel's "Les bains
des docks", a 5,000-square-meter aquatic center that references
ancient thermal baths with its various pools, treatment
areas and chill-out zones, in the middle of the soon-
Christian Richters, Uwe Ditz (l.)
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