“If it was the other way around and the stadium was too big, people would be complaining as well. When it was built, Braga were usually finishing in the bottom half of the table, often at risk of relegation now they’re near the top, so people now demand more of the club. “Portugal is one of the hosts of World Cup 2030, and to be eligible for the knockout games you need a stadium with 60,000 seats” he says. There has been talk in recent years that Braga could build a new stadium on the old site, which is a thought that saddens Souto de Moura even more than it does to his unique creation being altered. It only makes sense for the stadium to be used by Braga,” said Rio. “The dialogue has opened, therefore we are going to formally make an assessment of the value at which the stadium could be sold. They have been paying just €500 (£435 $533) per month to rent their current stadium and, with improvements needed to modernise facilities, the council are cutting ties. Yet Braga still regularly only fill half of the arena, which belongs to the city council, and Ricardo Rio, mayor of Braga and president of the city council, confirmed the stadium is up for sale earlier this month.Įstadio 1 de Maio was Braga’s long-term home from 1921 until 2003. The stadium was successfully completed in time for Euro 2004, a home tournament in which Portugal lost to Greece in the final. Two large beams at the top of both stands add support but it took computer simulations and small-scale model tests in a wind tunnel before it was safe to build. It was a mammoth task to achieve the correct balance of forces with no pillars to support the roof - which is a cantilever only supported by the west stand with the cables anchored into the rock. (Octavio Passos – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images) Sensing an opportunity, he agreed to a meeting the next day to discuss the brief where it was decided the capacity should be 30,000. He informed the council they would likely run into a similar problem. They called to ask whether he could put them in touch with Santiago Calatrava, the architect who designed New York’s World Trade Centre Oculus. The vice-president of Braga City Council had already approached Norman Foster, the brain behind the Gherkin building in London and the glass dome of the Reichstag in Berlin, but he was too expensive. Souto de Moura was not the architect originally handed the reins for the project in 2000. And perhaps for that very reason, the one I enjoyed the most.” “The Braga stadium might be the most difficult project I ever did. “Being an architect is not an easy life, and to get international recognition for a small country like Portugal… I’m not going to pretend I suffer from false modesty,” Souto de Moura tells The Athletic. Known as ‘A Pedreira’ (The Quarry), the stadium could have been unremarkable were it not for architect Eduardo Souto de Moura, whose creation was awarded the Pritzker Award in 2011, regarded as the Nobel Prize of architecture. Braga’s incredible stadium overlooking the valley (Octavio Passos – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)
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