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The Qatar World Cup will soon be history. This can already be seen: the traces of the tournament are being removed from the first arenas. Are there, as so often, white elephants? A stadium is to be completely dismantled and rebuilt somewhere else.
BDismantling work has started on the first World Cup arenas in Qatar. Three of the eight stadiums are no longer venues for games after the round of 16. On Tuesday morning, all tarpaulins and grids for the subway line around the 974 stadium were removed, numerous construction workers cleared and worked in the arena’s forecourt. Around twelve hours earlier, Brazil had beaten South Korea 4-1.
The dismantling of the actual stadium should not begin until after the final of the World Cup, said two of the workers. The stadium was built from 974 shipping containers because of Qatar’s telephone code 00974. A modular construction like a Lego set. Minimalistic and yet an architectural delight. It is intended to serve as an example, since it required less building material and could be built so quickly and allegedly more cost-effectively.
In addition, it is transportable, can be completely dismantled and reassembled elsewhere. We are talking about a new home in Israel or in an African country. Everything is to be dismantled and raised again at another place of activity – from the 44,089 seat shells to the stairs to the toilets.
Sport and its “white elephants”
Last year six games of the Arab Cup took place in Stadium 974, at the World Cup the architecturally unusual arena was the venue for seven games. Leisure and green areas are to be created on the area directly next to the harbor and beach.
The container arena 974 from the outside …
What: AP
…. and from the inside
What: Getty Images/Lars Baron
Especially with the 974, Qatar differs from other major sporting events, where the arenas served their purpose as a venue for the spectacle for a few weeks, but then fell into insignificance. Prestige projects with high maintenance costs but no real need once the Olympic flame has gone out or the final whistle has sounded. These sites are called “White Elephants”. Investment ruins that had little or no use after completion.
Not only are weeds growing or is the concrete crumbling in competition arenas like those of the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, but also already in those of Beijing 2018 – and the winter competition venues of the Winter Games 2022 in the mountains north of Beijing are threatened with an end as a billion-dollar grave.
Since 2020, the International Olympic Committee has been trying to put a stop to gigantism. An agenda for the construction of the stadiums was recorded:
- Subsequent use is the main use, sports facilities must primarily be planned for 30 years of long-term subsequent use and not for 30 days of short-term event use.
- Full is better than a lot, the atmosphere of a sports facility lives from the proximity and a high density and not necessarily from the size.
- Decentralization is more sustainable than building, especially for special sports facilities that are expensive and then difficult to use, the IOC expressly prohibits new construction.
In Beijing, however, this year showed again that the hosts had conjured up ambitious prestige projects with high maintenance costs but no proven need, which they later simply no longer needed. The beautiful shine will soon fade from the dust that will settle over it, something like that. For the rest of the World Cup stadiums in Qatar, too, it can be expected that one or the other will be more than dispensable in the future. The 974 could therefore become something of a notable exception.
