Stadium Battles 001

[Mo Rush]

Which member of this family is your favourite?

Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium



London Olympic Stadium



Bay Arena

[ReiAyanami]

Well, interesting idea. Bay Arena?? First time I learn about it, any more info, it looks interesting!

Anyway, judging from the renders and the relative threads, I would say Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. Sorry London, I like that too, but the Indian looks more sophisticated

[nachop666]

more photos please

[RobH]

More up-to-date renders of London's stadium:











And the most recent photo:

[ReiAyanami]

The renderings are not as accurate, it's far more top heavy than they visualize it. I actually like the real thing more than the CGI

[herb21]

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=598146 has a similar style

[thun]

BayArena: it's in Leverkusen, Germany and home of the first division club Bayer Leverkusen. Its capacity is about 30.00 viewers.

[Lord David]

None of them. Give my Ernst Happel Stadion any day of the week! :P

[Ragarms]

I just can't fathom why people are defending the London Olympic Stadium.

When you look at the previous venues (and the incredible Birds Nest, for example) by way of comparison, London are preparing a venue that looks temporary and prefabricated at best.

When I traveled past it recently I was filled with "Meh".

I can't believe they won the hosting rights on the back of this stadium.

[gho]

This thread needs more pictures and more information (ie capacity, year built, main uses etc.)

[Lord David]

Originally Posted by Ragarms

I just can't fathom why people are defending the London Olympic Stadium.

When you look at the previous venues (and the incredible Birds Nest, for example) by way of comparison, London are preparing a venue that looks temporary and prefabricated at best.

When I traveled past it recently I was filled with "Meh".

I can't believe they won the hosting rights on the back of this stadium.

Well to be sure of the facts, it is designed to be temporary, Olympics capacity of 80,000 downsized to 25,000 post Olympics.
So the temporary and prefabrication is justifiable.

What isn't is however, was that their original stadium design was dramatic, even if it was mostly temporary, far superior to what they're constructing now. I guess the global economic crisis and cost concerns caused the design change.



It fulfills it's purpose, if only the concessions and facade were better designed.

[Dimethyltryptamine]

I would pick London Olympic Stadium, but in all honesty, I don't really like any of them.

[koolio]

My preference in descending order:

Nehru Stadium
BayArena
London Olympic Stadium

[RobH]

I guess the global economic crisis and cost concerns caused the design change.

Nothing like that. The original design was a drawing shown to the IOC. It was never a final design and they were aware of that (as they would have been when Sydney and Beijing showed different designs during their presentations). The new design was unveiled in Novemeber 2007, months before the credit-crunch became a reality. The Olympic Village is the main project which was affected by the recession, with fewer apartments now being build and the whole thing being publically funded after it proved impossible for the contractor to raise the money needed.

Anyway, the original London stadium "design" (concept drawing is more accurate description) may have looked nicer from the outside but it was in fact vastly inferior to what we're getting. It would have cost a lot more for starters because of the intricacy of the 'design' of the roof. Secondly, the stands were split up into lots of free standing structures with massive gaps between them which would have been awful for wind flow and terrible for crowd atmosphere within the stadium. Thirdly, it looked god-awful in legacy mode after it had been downsized with random stands and huge gaps everywhere. The real London stadium will be the best ever for spectators with the stands closer to the track and field than at any previous Olympic stadium. Trading off some aesthetic beauty in the original "design" for huge amounts of practical benifits in the new one is well, well worth it; trust me.

I just can't fathom why people are defending the London Olympic Stadium.

When you look at the previous venues (and the incredible Birds Nest, for example) by way of comparison, London are preparing a venue that looks temporary and prefabricated at best.

When I traveled past it recently I was filled with "Meh".

I can't believe they won the hosting rights on the back of this stadium.

Ragarms, the London stadium looks "temporary and prefabricated" because two thirds of it is! And you ask why London won on the back of this stadium design...well, the truth, as I explained above, is it didn't. London didn't, like most previous host cities, have a stadium design in place before they won as it would have cost a lot to completely design a stadium which would have only been built in the event of London winning the bid! So it showed the IOC drawings.

London won the hosting rights on the promise of building a stadium which in legacy mode would provide an athletics facility for London, not on the basis of any particular set of stadium aesthetics. Many people in this forum miss this point when they go on about the old "designs" (concept drawings) or comparison with the (now sports-free and very expensive) Birds Nest. And the choice of Rio for 2016 with their Havelange Stadium - another stadium which doesn't stand up well in comparison to the Birds Nest in terms of impressive architecture - is another sign that the IOC don't care half as much as some people here about the exterior of the Olympic stadium.

London's stadium is very expensive; perhaps too expensive (it's being built in London and there was no real competition in the tendering process). I'll admit that. But costs aside, it does what it does very well indeed which is why it's very easy to defend as an Olympic stadium, and as a piece of (mostly temporary) architecture.

[ReiAyanami]

Edit: Ok we all know why LOS is special in it's own way, but I think the point of the thread is that all of them have many things in common.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course

[RobH]

It is a thread about the Olympic stadium actually, as well as the other two stadiums in the poll - which I'm sure we'll get onto discussing when points are brought up about them. Of course people are entitled to their opinion. But I'm also entitled to explain to them, if their opinions are based on inaccuraices, why that is the case - no war starting here!

[carlspannoosh]

I voted Bay Arena although I think it looked better before the expansion.

[Ragarms]

For the sake of the integrity of this thread I'll limit my comments to the 'official' LOS thread.

FTR I voted for JNS because its design seems more integrated and subsequently more aesthetically appealing.