Green Point Stadium (Cape Town)

The Green Point Stadium dominates the Cape Town skyline along with Table Mountain and Lions Head Mountain. It was built for the 2010 Football World Cup that was held in South Africa at a cost of 4.5 billion Rands and it took 32 months to complete the 55.000 seat stadium.

As it's our last day in Cape Town I thought I'd blip it as we saw it every day since arrival! You cannot miss it!  It's next to The V&A waterfront.

The design for the 2010 Green Point Stadium uses natural light for ambience and to save energy; the façade is covered with an open mesh fabric that plays with the natural light. The Stadium’s roof line was designed to be as low as functionally possible as to ensure that views around the stadium remained protected. Ideally, the designers would have liked to dig the stadium deeper into the ground so that all visiting spectators would flow into a bowl in the earth.

However, the stadium could not be sunk into the ground as the hard rock under Green Point Common would mean that the builders would have to blast out the rock for a period of two years, which was not feasible due to time constraints. The roof of the stadium is based on the design of a bicycle wheel which provides a perfect example and system for a roof.

It is now also used for Rugby and concerts.