National Kaohsiung Stadium, Taiwan

Toyo Ito designed the National Stadium in Kaohsiung, Tiawan for the 2009 World Games. It seats 55,000 people and is usually used for football games.

Ito derived the stadium’s shape from the skeleton of a winding dragon. The structure gestures to the entrance and then coils around the field. The surrounding park is lush and green, and the entrance vast and vague. The repetitive ribs influence the core structure, as Ito bends over chunks of concrete and repeats them below the seating. The concrete seems to sag under the weight of all the people. This stark difference in material but similarity in design speaks of the spectators’ relationship to the athletes. The architecture is all about the event.

The roof is covered with 8,844 solar panels, and this is the first stadium to generate all of its electricity. It is also remarkable that it incorporates the solar panels into the general aesthetic, and pulls it off quite well. It could generate up to 1.14 gwh of electricity per year.

The 2009 World Olympics were an alternative to China’s 2008 Olympics, and I am happy to promote it because my blog is censored in China.

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(featured image by Peellden on wikipedia/creative commons)