Spectacular World Cup Stadium 2010

After we saw the ‘Bird Nest’ in China now we going to look at a stadium like a vast cooking pot simmering above a ring of fire in World Cup 2010 Africa.

Taken from reuters:

By Mike Collett

SOCCER CITY, South Africa (Reuters) – Built to look like a vast cooking pot simmering above a ring of fire, South Africa’s Soccer City Stadium promises to be an unforgettable venue for next year’s World Cup and one of the world’s most spectacular sporting arenas.

Costing 3 billion rand (227 million pounds) the 94,000-capacity stadium is distinctive, resembling a huge calabash — a hollowed-out gourd used as a cooking pot or water carrier throughout Africa.

The calabash has inspired the colouring of the orange and brown membrane that surrounds the stadium while a ring of lights will illuminate the bottom of the building, simulating fire underneath the pot.

When it is completed later this year it will be the biggest soccer stadium in Africa.

The stadium, which will host the World Cup final on July 11, 2010, embraces modern technology and will have more than 150 executive boxes commanding superb views of the pitch, comfort for fans and excellent working conditions for the media.

A 300-seat restaurant is being completed inside the stadium, with parking for 15,000 cars around the perimeter.

Six days a week, between 3,000 and 3,500 construction workers are busy at the site, 10 kms from Johannesburg and on the outskirts of Soweto.

Construction was on schedule, even though cost over-runs had resulted from unfavourable exchange rates and the price of the steelwork which was manufactured in Italy and Germany, Rod Pearce, the project manager, told Reuters.