The opening game of Euro 2012 will take place at Warsaw’s new 58,000 capacity National Stadium, now almost completed. It will also host two other group matches, a quarter-final and a semi-final.
The stadium’s architects are German firm gmp, who produced the two-tier design with a retractable roof, 55,000 regular seats and 64 VIP boxes. Below are gmp’s renderings.
Stadium construction began in the fall of 2009. The outer fixed roof is made of 55,000 square metres of firm PTFE coated glass fabric, while the inner retractable portion’s material is the more flexible PVC coated polyester fabric spanning 11,000 square metres. The retractable roof is held up by 6 radial cables that have 960 suspending points.
Photo by alexanderson on Flickr
Photo by JB007 on Flickr
Photo by arkur's this and that on Flickr
The metal mesh panels cladding the stadium are, of course, in Poland’s national colors.
Photo by alexanderson on Flickr
The stadium is being constructed on the site of Stadion Dziesięciolecia (Tenth Anniversary Stadium), built in 1955 from the rubble left by the wartime Warsaw Uprising, and itself the largest stadium in Warsaw until it became derelict in the 1980s and was turned into an outdoor market. This video gives a good sense of its history in photographic slides:
The cost of the stadium is a reported €500 million, funded by the national government. Yet delays due to accidents (with three fatalities), failed safety inspections and rising costs mean the stadium is now several months behind schedule to open. Here’s the stadium last winter:
Still, the new stadium is now rising grandly above the Vistula river, a mile or two from the center of Warsaw.
Photo by kcharnick on Flickr
Photo by Vincent A. on Flickr
Photo by Jaroslaw Marciuk
The stadium’s seating is in place, and it’s now just waiting for the installation of its natural grass.
Photo by chlac on Flickr
Finally, a look from the air:
Wow, that stadium looks very similar to the new BC Place in Vancouver, Canada.