Tarczyński Arena Wrocław – stadium description

New stadium for Wroclaw has been designed in 2008 by JSK Architekci, winners of the international competition. Construction was launched in Spring of 2009, but then halted just before the year ended. Municipality terminated main contractor's deal because of serious delays. The pause lasted for nearly three months until new company restarded works in March 2009.

The initial deadline of January 2011 was already then impossible to achieve, so the contract was prolonged to April and then end of June 2011. Even that proved to be optimistic as the venue was first given permission to host an event on Sept 9^th 2011, just one day before the boxing gala planned for months in advance.

Final cost of the stadium stands at PLN 857 mln (€200 mln). For that price Wroclaw received the largest modern stadium with single tier of seating which resulted in great accoustics. Exceptional is also the right word to describe facades – covered with fiberglass membrane, largest of its kind.

Large esplanade was constructed around the stadium, integrated with multi-storey car park. It raises almost 5,5 meters above ground level and the stadium's highest point is at nearly 40 meters. Inside there's more than 40,000 seats. Unfortunately due to redisigning the stands from two-tiered to a single tier, some seats had to be moved a few meters back and landed behind roof supports, resulting in obstructed view (1543). Therefore it was declared not all seats will be used for fans, especially during Euro 2012.

Two giant screens hang from the roof, each with a surface of nearly 90 sqm, but the largest screen is the facade itself. Membrane is a very good ground for both statis and dynamic images to be displayed, apart from the 'traditional' nightime illumination. At daytime the membrane lets sunlight under the stands – an important fact for office workers, because there are four office buildings constructed inside the ground to increase profits.