Opinion / Hannah Lucinda Smith
Here today, gone tomorrow
About 10km east of central Doha stands a stadium that is not long for this world – in fact it will disappear from its current location once the football World Cup in Qatar concludes in mid-December. Built from shipping containers and a modular steel structure, Stadium 974 – named after the number of storage units used in its construction and the country’s international dialling code – could “open up a whole new vision”, says its architect, Mark Fenwick.
Madrid-based Fenwick Iribarren Architects took inspiration from the big-top circus tent, a huge structure that is designed to be moved to new locations. Fenwick also took note of the abundance of shipping containers and structures made from them around the world; he even used Lego to experiment with modular forms.
Despite the simplicity of the idea, building a moveable stadium is an unprecedented achievement, particularly as host cities often struggle with the legacy of such structures. Once the tournament is over, it can be transported abroad, perhaps to a future World Cup host nation. “A stadium costs more to run over its lifetime than it does to build,” Fenwick tells Monocle. “I feel very strongly about the white elephants that are left behind after these events.”
The stadium’s roof means that it’s also suitable for rainy conditions and the shelf-like structures on which it’s built allow cross-ventilation, reducing the need for artificial cooling. Whether positive, climate-appropriate designs can help to take some of the heat off the host nation’s shortcomings on workers’ rights and questions over the procurement of the tournament itself remains to be seen.
Hannah Lucinda Smith is Monocle’s Istanbul correspondent. Read more about Qatar’s collapsible stadium in our November issue, which is out on Thursday, or subscribe today so that you don’t miss an issue.