Bravida Arena – stadium description

Good old Rambergsvallen was built back in 1935 and in the new century had to make way for a new stadium. Like in numerous cities across Europe, the athletics track was dropped in favour of a more compact football design.

Seemingly simple, maybe even too ordinary, the stadium in north-western Gothenburg is well thought through and original. It was built using almost only concrete prefabs. While this could well describe many stadia, in this case even the roof structure and floodlight masts are concrete, which is unseen overall. The reasoning for such move is purely pragmatic: salty wind from nearby sea could make metal elements harder to protect from rusting.

Floodlights can be considered the key visual feature, because they comprise a nearly 40-meter frame in each corner, rising well above the modest stadium (roof at 10m). Building such tall structures wasn’t that easy too, because ground under the stadium required significant piling work before construction. And as if this wasn’t enough, the former Rambergsvallen stadium site only allowed to build the stadium in west-east layout instead of preferable north-south.

As a result of these numerous constraints it seems very unlikely for the new Bravida Arena to ever reach crowd peaks of the old ground. Stands now hold 6,500 with both ends mostly having standing room. Although it’s possible to add further uppermost rows to grow beyond the 7,000-mark, expansion above that level would require significant interference with the concrete venue.