Letzigrund Stadium | Zurich

Letzigrund Stadium | Zurich
2-stage general planning and contracted study, 2nd Prize | 2002

Project manager, Stage 1: Felix Gut, Dipl. Arch. HTL
Project manager, Stage 2: Esther Deubelbeiss, Dipl. Arch. ETH

The building presents a powerful scale towards the city due to the dimensions of a broadly spanned, projecting roof supported by voluminous pylons. These open, outstretched peripheral building spaces create a strong relationship to the public space. The main entrances are spacious and distribute visitors directly or via stairs, which compress the spatial height, to the relaxed, agreeable area of the sweeping, oval-shaped stadium. White concrete surfaces lead from the city beneath the forecourt canopy. Architecturally and spatially, the circuit walkway leads past the seating rows as a mediating transition from the urban to the stadium space. The geometry and scale of the service cubes made of white concrete, which both line and form a boundary to the street space, contrast with the apparent small-scale, oval form of the row of concrete pillars towards the stadium interior. Daylight reflects on the side walls of those pillars and creates a soft transition to the stadium interior. By contrast, the hard shadows on the inner side of the concrete cubes represent the boundary to the city.