SWEDEN - Stadium and Arena Development News

[staff]

Small update from the new Malmö Stadium - Feb 13th;


Large VIP box/loge/palco,

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VIP bathroom, with "action view".

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Northern end entrance,

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East side,

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Photos by Bengt Håkansson via Malmö FF

[staff]

Time-lapse made from webcam images of the construction of the new Malmö Stadium. It ends in September '08 or so because that's when it was "closed".

[Svempa99]

Originally Posted by Zeno2

Didn't notice the rendering before, but still, it doesn't grab me by the balls.
The outside remains very depressing due to the overall black colour.
A stadium event should be fun you know, here it feels like entering a huge funeral home.

It is also disappointing that even with such a dominant external steel roof structure half of the lower tier is getting completely wet when it rains (see previous pictures). It's such a poor roof when you actually experience it from the inside. Where is the logic?

'Original' design is one thing, but it is certainly worthless when 25% of the spectators are getting soaked when it rains.

I agree that the roof should have been a bit bigger, preferably with glass. The same goes for Gamla Ullevi in Göteborg. But remember that these are Swedish stadiums and the low sun angle stops us from building stadiums like San Siro. Hell, even down there the roof takes away too much light with poor grass as a consequence. The oversized steel truss construction might be due to our northern latitude too, because our roofs must withstand meters of snow. That's heavy!

I think Swedbank Stadion will look really good from the outside. I was a bit skeptic when I saw the renderings at first. It's no beauty exactly but hey, I think stadiums should be intimidating. And the design suits this location with good deal of space around it. The inside was a disappointment when I saw the first renderings. I thought that it was a misstake to take away the upper tier for the supporter's section. Sure, I understand why they did it, but it makes the stadium less beautiful. But in a way I can see that it's a part of the design, it puts the end side with all the home fans in focus, also emphasised but the orientation of the stadium in relation to Malmö Stadion and the city. This design reminds me of Stockholms stadion. It's quite unique, so thumbs up for that!

Gamla Ullevi is located more centrally with streets along two sides of the stadium and two sides next to buildings. I think the chosen design suits that location, a flamboyant design like Swedbank wouldn't fit. However, now when it's built I can feel that it looks a bit too raw. The backsides of the tribunes look a bit monotone. It will hopefully get more vivid when the stores open. And there is also enough space to build more commersial spaces around the stadium in the future.

I love the uniform design of the tribunes on Gamla Ullevi. And they are really steep. However, it bugs me that they didn't build it as beautiful as I hoped. Somewhat ugly colors on chairs and isles. "Industrial" lighting fixtures. And the ground level outside the stadium is lower that the street level. Because of this the stores don't connect really to the streets.

There is one interesting aspect of Gamla Ullevi too. It pays tribute to the history of the old stadium. What do I mean? Well, the main entrance to the stadium is located where it always has been, in the street corner Ullevigatan-Nya Allén. And it's surprisingly open (which the pictures here don't show really). Usually you don't want the corners to be too open but here it's pretty cool that you actually can see the pitch from the outside.

Another thing from the old stadium is the few rows on the lower tier. It reminds me of the old main tribune, were there were a few rows of standing places below the actual tribune. It was my favorite place in the stadium. It would have been really cool if they would have offered standing places all around the lower tier in the new stadium too. The feeling standing there when the stadium was packed was very special, you were really close to the game. But that's just nostalgia of course.

Well, both stadiums will be quite great (I hope)!

[Alemanniafan]

Originally Posted by Svempa99

...
There is one interesting aspect of Gamla Ullevi too. It pays tribute to the history of the old stadium. What do I mean? Well, the main entrance to the stadium is located where it always has been, in the street corner Ullevigatan-Nya Allén. And it's surprisingly open (which the pictures here don't show really). Usually you don't want the corners to be too open but here it's pretty cool that you actually can see the pitch from the outside.

Another thing from the old stadium is the few rows on the lower tier. It reminds me of the old main tribune, were there were a few rows of standing places below the actual tribune. It was my favorite place in the stadium. It would have been really cool if they would have offered standing places all around the lower tier in the new stadium too. The feeling standing there when the stadium was packed was very special, you were really close to the game. But that's just nostalgia of course.

Well, both stadiums will be quite great (I hope)!

I personally think nostalgia and tribute to the history of previous stadia are an enormeous plus in those few modern stadia that actually do have them.
Those are what make the big difference in comparison to a sterile arena.
It makes it much easier for the fans to feel home, for them to accept or maybe even love the new stadium. sadly most clubs don't pay much attention to those aspects nowadays when building their own brand bew modern stadium. And often the architecture is modern but not very specific for the local club itself. Most modern stadia look like they could have been constructed anywhere else in the world just as well. And that's very sad.
The fans of a club that honors its own history the old stadium when building a new one are usually much better off than if that doesn't happen, because they have their own unique stadium then.
Here where I live in Aachen the old stadium is 81 years old, now and everyone loves it. Here it is extremely difficult for the fanbase to accept any new stadium as their furure new home. Only because the clubofficials and fans communicated so intensely and most likely because the architect that designed the new stadium used to visit the old stadium to see the clubs matches himself. The new stadium here that is just being built is kind of a modern reincarnation of the old stadium as much as it can be. Anyone from outside the club most likely won't notice what's special about the new stadium that's under construction, because they don't feel as homely there like the local fans do.
But the stadiums history, the character, those are what really makes the unique "spirit" of a stadium, no matter wether it's old or new. And most modern stadia do lack this spirit, especially if they don't match the clubs own unique character very well.

[staff]

Originally Posted by Svempa99

I agree that the roof should have been a bit bigger, preferably with glass.

A part of the roof is actually made of glass, due to the low angle of the sun in northern Europe.

See here:
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[Svempa99]

Originally Posted by staff

A part of the roof is actually made of glass, due to the low angle of the sun in northern Europe.

Very good decision. I would like to see more glass (or rather plastics) in our Nordic stadium roofs. I don't know why we haven't seen much of that yet. Cost maybe. Not enough load bearing for the snow maybe. And maybe the owners anticipates a not so distant future with artificial turf. Then the extra cost for the glass would be for nothing, but a few years costly green-keeping is OK.

[Svempa99]

Originally Posted by Alemanniafan

The new stadium here that is just being built is kind of a modern reincarnation of the old stadium as much as it can be.

Thanks for an interesting post! I checked out your new stadium and it looks swell! However, one could argue that when a club turns a page in it's history by investing big in a new stadium, then it's also time for a fresh design.

When it comes to Gamla Ullevi, the new ground here in Göteborg, I am not 100% convinced that it was the best decition. They could either have built it much more expensive, let's say a 30-50.000 stadium with retractable roof. Then it would have replaced Ullevi as the multi-use event stadium.

Or they could have built it much cheaper. They could have demolished the three wooden terrasses, and replaced them with three modern tribunes with similar design as the main tribune from the 30s. It still would have been a great stadium, although with open corners.

The currently built stadium is something in between.

[staff]

Update from the new Malmö Stadium, feb 18th - covered in the snow that fell two night ago!

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All photos by Bengt Håkansson via Malmö FF

[Carrerra]

Snow again... Sweden is absolutely snow country Wow...

[staff]

What you see in the pics is pretty rare! The few days it snows in Malmö every winter, it almost never stays on the ground more than a couple of hours. This time the ground has been white for 2-3 days!

[Alemanniafan]

Originally Posted by Svempa99

Thanks for an interesting post! I checked out your new stadium and it looks swell! However, one could argue that when a club turns a page in it's history by investing big in a new stadium, then it's also time for a fresh design.

Yes, of course. And in some cases that might surely be a better or more apropriate approach. But in my personal opinion that's just very rarely the case. And when it's well done a good architect can in some cases very successfully combine a new and fresh, modern design with traditional elements, nostalgica and paying a tribute to the history of the club and previous stadium/stadia.
Let me mention two very famous stadia as examples here, the Olympiastadion in Berlin and the Wembley stadium in London.
The Olympiastadion in Berlin was under protection because of its historic value and its oustanding architecture, so of course not much could be changed when it was modernized. Out of that necessity just a low flat white roof was put on top of it, with an opening towards the Olympic torch.
Well this stadium looks spectacular and is a great example of modern design integrated into an old the historic stadium. It really worked ot very well and the history has been well preserved with the modernsation.
The Wembley stadium on the other hand has been completely torn down and replaced with a modern Bowl type arena. A spectacular stadium also with the gigantic arch over the roof. But the new stadium really doesn't have anything in common with the old wembley stadium it's architecture and the twin towers. I think that is pretty sad. because despite the fact that the new wembley stadium is great and spectacular, it in fact does look like it could have been built anywhere else also, in Paris, Madrid, Dubai, Sydney or Tokyo just as well for example. It doesn't look specifically british or anything like the old wembley stadium. I believe one could have build a new wembley stadium just as spectacular with some stylistic elements of the old stadium. Maybe preserving the twin towers or building some new modern structure that resembles those former twin towers in some way, instead of building this gigantic arch, wich of couse is nice anyways. I just believe as nice as the stadium is, it would have been better to build a real unique modern wembley stadium, paying tribute to the history of this great stadium instead of just a constructing modern stadium there in its place to just replace it all with. The new Wembley stadium could have just as well been just a spectacular "new chapter" so to speak keeping the old pages and architectural elements and not rewriting an entirely "new book" instead, by tearing the whole previous stadium down and replacing it all with something entirely different, as nice as it all might be.

When it comes to Gamla Ullevi, the new ground here in Göteborg, I am not 100% convinced that it was the best decition. They could either have built it much more expensive, let's say a 30-50.000 stadium with retractable roof. Then it would have replaced Ullevi as the multi-use event stadium.

Or they could have built it much cheaper. They could have demolished the three wooden terrasses, and replaced them with three modern tribunes with similar design as the main tribune from the 30s. It still would have been a great stadium, although with open corners.

The currently built stadium is something in between.

Yes that might have been a better solution, who knows. But probably the bigger solution you suggest would have been to expensive, or not able to be financed. So maybe the chosen solution might have been the best one available. Who knows, I can not really judge that.
But I like the architecture of both stadia here the one in Malmö and the Gamla Ullevi. They both really do look swedish and each do remind a little of the previous stadia with a unique and fairly modern design. A, what probably most people view as spectacular, organic bubblestructure instead of the chosen design would not have been better. It would far more likely just have resembled some small cheap copy of a bigger stadium elsewhere instead, unless it would really have been a very rare and remarcable architecture. The stadia shown here might not look quite as spectacular as some other modern famous ones, but I think they really suit the clubs and cities well and they do look very nice. Malmö is not Madrid or Valencia and having an own stadiumarchitecture is far better than just a cheap copy of the big sculptured arenas all over the world, I believe. I for example am also really very glad, we here in Aachen aren't building any small version of the Allianzarena or the Birdsnest, the Camp Nou, Stade de France... Wembley or whatever. A truely new Tivoli, that is so far better than all those other possibilities. And you folks in Malmö and Göteborg are also better of with what you're building than a cheap tiny immitation of these famous stadia above.

[staff]

Installing the white seats to form the letters M F F!

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Mounts for one of the video screens:

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[www.sercan.de]

I love this 1 tier stand
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3503/...036ae2c0_o.jpg

Which the new GS satdium would have one.
Damn suit demand

[staff]

Yeah it was pretty much the only demand "the people" (the supporters) were able to get through. The rest of the stadium is "suitified".

[likasz]

25,000-40,000 seaters are fashionable nowadays
NYC, Antalya,Konya,Cracow,Hoffenheim,Leverkusen,Dresden,Moscow (CSKA and Spartak), Gdańsk, Wrocław, Dniepropietrowsk, Lviv, Odessa, Kharkiv,Houston and Malmo.

[staff]

This is 24.000 so it doesn't quite qualify.

[staff]

New Malmö Stadium, Feb 23rd;


South main entrance,

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Some hallway pics;

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Kiosk;

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Corner entrance;

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Facade "stripes";

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Overview. Still some snow in here from last week's snow inferno.

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A quarter of the big-screen display;

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Parts of the big-screen being transported into the stadium. The big-screen displays will be 55 m2 in area.

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Photos by Bengt Håkansson via Malmö FF

[www.sercan.de]

55m² for a 24k stadium is huge.

[staff]

Do you have any comparisons with other stadiums (European ones) of various sizes? I thought 55 m2 sounded big, but I can't really put it into perspective.

[www.sercan.de]

Amsterdam Arena
2x 50m²

Stuttgart
2x 115m²

Duisburg
2x 41m²

Olympia Stadion München
1x 80m²
2x 145m² (old one. just 2 colours)

Stade de France
2x 120m² (biggest in Eruope)

Dortmund
2x 48m²
1x 28m² (outside the stadium)

Azteca
2x 144m²

Bremen
2x 50m²

Schalke
4x 35m²

Kaiserslautern
1x 25m² (old one. just 2 colours)
2x 50m²

Gladbach
1x 52 m²
2x 55m²

Leverkusen
3 ones, biggest is 48m²

Frankfurt
4x 31m²

Hannover
2x 41m²

Allianz Arena
2x 92,16m²

TT Arena
2x 84m² (at least according to the plans )