Texts for Spodek, Katowice, Poland
Interbuild:
[English] The wide-open spaces of exhibition halls with their release from the module of a
typist’s requirements and their complicated functional and structural demands have resulted in
some striking examples of liberated design. The winners of a competition for a Sports Hall at
Katowice in Poland welcomed the complications of a multi-purpose structure as ‘a catalyst in the
creative process’ and the architect-engineer combination of J. Hryniewiecki, M. Gintowt, M.
Krasinski, W Zalewski, M. Wlodarz and J. Zorawski have produced a graceful and versatile
amphitheatre easily and efficiently public spectacles from a solo weightlifter to a full circus, a
cello recital or an ice-hockey snatch. As a final virtuoso flourish to the design, the tema have
also contended with a site subject to mining subsidence with a high water table and a subsoil
corrosive to concrete.
…A synthesis of these [multiple] audience requirements led to the asymmetric design chosen
which still makes ingenious use of the structural and functional advantages of the basic circular
form while adopting an axis of direction which will satisfy all categories of public performance.
…The structural concept…is masterly in its comprehensive exploitation of all the materials used
and the design of components which contribute to maximum strength and speed of building. The
whole structure bears down on a small inner zone on its cup-shaped foundations so that the bulk
of a building which can accommodate 12,000 people swims in the ground, impervious to mining
subsidence or even earthquake[s].
…The components are rhomboid in shape and can be slotted together by a tower crane circling
the exterior of the building. The placing and welding at three corners of the rhomboidal
components enables them to act as inclined cantilevers until the ring is closed and the
prestressing carried out.
1960 competition, construction completed 1972
--“Complex Problem Solutions p.7”
This ultra-modern, 12,000 seat multi-purpose auditorium complex was constructed on a site in
the mining region of Upper Silesia in Poland. The site presented designers with an extremely
critical problem: unusually poor foundation conditions. The project was engineered to rest on a
small inner zone of a cup-shaped foundation. This design, which has since become known as our
“cup and saucer concept” was created so that the tapered conical bulk literally swims in the
unstable subsoils. The complex is impervious to mining disturbances in the ground beneath it.
This is but one example of how Archimetrics [sic] is equipped to overcome extreme
environmental problems in the development of new design principles. Such problems are likely
to be encountered ever more frequently in the future as the availability of prime building sites
diminishes in this country and building demands increase in countries around the world with
inhospitable topographical conditions.
1979 Eric Clapton
1984 Elton John
1987 Metallica
1994 Basi Trzetrzelewsklei
1996 Bryan Adams
1997 ZZ Top
1998 Iron Maiden
2000 Marylin Manson
[German] Sport Hall in Katowice
The possibility for large masses of different forms to be handled free from rigidly standing
columns, vertical walls, and flat roofs, combined with the simultaneous task of finding a solution
for functional and constructive problems, gives an occasion for creative invention. Such
inventive possibilities, with both practical architectural tectonics and the artistic thought of
antiquity, become the spiritual achievement of modern architects and engineers.