Stadium, Debrecen

Architect: Péter Bordás
Text: András Bán
Photos:Tamás Bujnovszky

Commissioned to design the football arena of Debrecen, Péter Bordás and his team of architects had to face the challenge of reconciling the clashing criteria of the protected natural environment, the location traditionally used for recreation, a soccer match symbolising urban lifestyle and mobilizing large and messy crowds of people and the symbolic appearance as an expectation. They responded by drawing a disciplined building by maximally utilizing the tight space at their disposal so as to humanize the simple spatial system and the arena with two spectacular and two almost unnoticeable symbolic gestures. Thus they shaped the entire building to create a single metaphor. Using extraordinarily thin girders, walkways set on „rods” to lift the structure off the ground, they optically halved the huge structure. The well-visible part was clad in a spiral white tarpaulin with a light gesture, as if it was a lantern used in a forest. This form has the chance to exist as a landmark building of the cityscape. One of its finest symbols is that whilst we must ambition to create a vandal-proof safe stadium, they tried their best to conceal the steel and concrete masses used for security to the extent as possible – and with success. The other is a professional homage: they preserved the naïvely Bauhaus-style entrance of the old sports whilst accentuating a certain section of the former grandstand.

Client: Nagyerdei Stadion Rekonstrukciós Kft.
Leading architect: Péter Bordás
General architecture: BORD Építész Stúdió
Coordinating architect: Róbert Benke
Fellow architects: Róbert Gulyás, Annamária Holovits, Tamás Mezey, Tímea Szabó, Júlia Szendrői, Tamás Tolvaj, Kata Zih
HVAC: Zoltán Hollókövi, Sándor Farkas
Landscape: András Kuhn – Gardenworks Táj- és kertépítész Iroda Kft.
Structure: Zsigmond Dezső – Hydrastat Mérnöki Iroda Kft.
Main contractor: „Hajrá Debrecen!” Konzorcium: HUNÉP Universal Építőipari Zrt. és Épkerservice Zrt.