Green Point stadium ready for 2010

(LOC) Monday 14 December 2009
Keys to the brand new Cape Town Stadium will be handed over to the city’s Executive Mayor Alderman Dan Plato ahead of the 2010 FIFA World Cup™ today.

“Just over a week after the successful hosting of the Final Draw for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Cape Town will witness another momentous event – the handing over of the brand new Cape Town Stadium (Green Point stadium) to the City of Cape Town.

“At a special ceremony to mark the completion of one of the world’s most spectacular stadiums, the ‘keys’ will be handed by the main contractors, Murray and Roberts and WBHO, to Cape Town’s Executive Mayor, Alderman Dan Plato,” the city said in a statement on Monday.

Construction of the 68 000-seater stadium started on 26 March 2007, and the project has been completed on deadline two years and nine months later.

In just 33 months, joint contractors Murray and Roberts and WBHO completed the massive project at a cost of 4.4 billion rand (about 600 million dollars).

The project architects were an association between GMP Architects of Germany and two local firms, Louis Karol and Associates and Point Architects.

Green Point stadium

The design: The sweeping silhouette of the Green Point stadium has forever changed the face of the surrounding Green Point Common.

Enwrapped by a façade of woven fibreglass, coated with Teflon, it will resemble a rose-coloured bowl floating on a base, when lit up at night. The architects have dubbed the stadium “the Diva of Cape Town”, reflecting the constantly changing moods of the city in varying weather conditions.

The roof: The design and construction of the roof is unique. Its basic structure resembled a bicycle wheel, open in the middle with 72 cables linking the outer and inner rings of the circle were slowly tightened to raise the roof from ground level to its present height.

Another first for the roof is the use of 16mm thick panels of glass to cover and protect the spectators from strong winds and rain. This will let in the light while the ceiling panels underneath – made of woven PVC fabric - will soften the noise from within.

The stadium bowl: For the eight World Cup matches to be played at the venue, the stadium will have a seating capacity of 68,000, including 13,000 temporary seats which will be removed afterwards. Features of the stadium are that it can be evacuated in 15 minutes and that all the spectators are close to the game.

Safety: Spectators will be protected by a state-of-the-art camera surveillance system which is monitored by police in the Venue Operations Centre inside the stadium, while pitch invasions are discouraged by a wide moat around the circumference. There is also a police station inside the building to deal with hooligans and other criminals.

Quick facts:


96,000 cubic metres of concrete were used
The roof has a total weight of 4,700 tons
Some 9,000 glass panels were used to cover 37,000 square metres of roof
500 toilets and 360 urinals
115 entry turnstiles
16 lifts
More than 2,500 workers were employed on site during construction, and almost 1,200 artisans received training from the contractors

Source: FIFA.com