Scandinavium
Encyclopedia
Scandinavium is the primary indoor sports and event arena in Gothenburg
Gothenburg
Gothenburg is the second-largest city in Sweden and the fifth-largest in the Nordic countries. Situated on the west coast of Sweden, the city proper has a population of 519,399, with 549,839 in the urban area and total of 937,015 inhabitants in the metropolitan area...

, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

. Construction on Scandinavium began in 1969 after decades of setbacks, the arena was built in time for the 350th year anniversary celebration of the City of Gothenburg and was inaugurated on May 18, 1971.

Scandinavium has been selected as a championship arena at least fifty times, hosting events such as World Championships in ice hockey, figure skating, and swimming, European championships, Davis Cup
Davis Cup
The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation and is contested between teams of players from competing countries in a knock-out format. The competition began in 1900 as a challenge between Britain and the United States. By...

 finals, and in 1985 the Eurovision Song Contest
Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union .Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition...

. Scandinavium is the home arena for Frölunda HC
Frölunda HC
Frölunda Hockey Club, also known as the Frölunda Indians, are a Swedish professional ice hockey club based in Gothenburg. They are currently playing in the highest Swedish league, Elitserien, where they have played the majority of the seasons during its existence. The last time they played in the...

 of Elitserien
Elitserien
Elitserien, is a professional ice hockey league composed of twelve teams in Sweden...

, and venue for the annual Göteborg Horse Show
Göteborg Horse Show
Göteborg Horse Show is an international horse show held annually in the Scandinavium arena in Gothenburg, Sweden. The event has been arranged since 1977 and is often held in the spring.- External links :**...

.

History

Plans to build an arena at the site were part of a proposal originating from 1931 to build a swimming hall and other municipally owned facilities for sport and recreation next to the exhibition center Svenska Mässan
Svenska Mässan
Svenska Mässan or, in English, Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre is an exhibition and convention centre in Gothenburg, Sweden and is one of Scandinavia's biggest assembly points which attracts around one million visitors every year...

. In 1936 a preplanning process for the swimming hall and the adjunct area started, but was put on hold due to the precarious situation in Europe at the time and eventually canceled following the outbreak of World War II. In 1948 an architectural design competition was announced for an indoor arena with the project name Valhalla Inomhusarena (Valhalla indoor arena), the winning design was presented by a work group led by architect Poul Hultberg
Poul Hultberg
Poul Erik Eggert Hultberg is a Danish architect, who worked primarily in Gothenburg, Sweden.Hultberg studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen and graduated in 1943...

, who was working for Nils Olsson
Nils Olsson
Nils Olsson was a Swedish architect.In 1948 he won a bronze medal in the art competitions of the Olympic Games for designing the "Baths and Sporting Hall for Gothenburg".-External links:*...

's architect firm in Gothenburg. Financing for the arena and other proposed facilities became a subject of public and political debate, the plans to build the arena were postponed indefinitely. The Valhalla Swimming Hall
Valhalla Swimming Hall
Valhalla Swimming Hall is a swimming hall located in Gothenburg, Sweden. Valhalla was officially opened on December 6, 1956, by Gothenburg's municipal commissioner Torsten Henriksson....

, which was the primary building in the 1931 proposal, was the only proposed facility to be built during the fifties due to capacity problems at other central swimming facilities.

In the 1962 election campaign the Swedish Social Democratic Party
Swedish Social Democratic Party
The Swedish Social Democratic Workers' Party, , contesting elections as 'the Workers' Party – the Social Democrats' , or sometimes referred to just as 'the Social Democrats' and most commonly as Sossarna ; is the oldest and largest political party in Sweden. The party was founded in 1889...

 guaranteed that they would build the arena if they won the election. The Social Democrats won the election and a pre-planning process was started but financing was still an issue and the plans were yet again put on hold. In 1968 a committee assigned to plan the 350th year celebration of Gothenburg considered that it was a good idea to build the arena in time for the celebrations in 1971, making it a lasting memory of the anniversary. A company responsible for the construction was formed by the municipality and private investors, while Poul Hultberg was asked to revise his 23-year-old designs. An estimated construction cost of twenty-three million SEK caused wild protests and intense debates but did not delay the progress. In May 1969 it was discovered that there was no construction permit for the arena, delaying the start of construction for a few weeks. When tartan track
Tartan track
Tartan Track is the trademarked all-weather synthetic track surfacing made of polyurethane which is used for track and field competitions. It lets athletes compete in bad weather without serious performance loss and improves their results over other surfaces...

s were installed near the end of construction, the concentration of flammable gases in the building was so high that one spark could have potentially blown up the entire structure. When construction was completed in May 1971, Scandinavium stood as the largest covered arena in northern Europe with an attendance capacity of 14,000 spectators. The construction cost totaled thirty-one million SEK, which resulted in an eight million SEK budget deficit.

Structure and facilities

Scandinavium's "sweeping appearance" comes from the hyperbolic paraboloid
Paraboloid
In mathematics, a paraboloid is a quadric surface of special kind. There are two kinds of paraboloids: elliptic and hyperbolic. The elliptic paraboloid is shaped like an oval cup and can have a maximum or minimum point....

 shaped saddle roof
Saddle roof
A saddle roof is one which follows a convex curve about one axis and a concave curve about the other. The hyperbolic paraboloid form has been used for roofs at various times since it is easily constructed from straight sections of lumber, steel, or other conventional materials...

. The roof is supported by a prestressed
Prestressed structure
Prestressed structure is the one whose overall integrity, stability and security depend, primarily, on a prestressing. Prestressing means the intentional creation of permanent stresses in a structure for the purpose of improving its performance under various service conditions.There are the...

 cable net, with a nearly constant spacing of four meters in both directions, anchored in a space curved reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete
Reinforced concrete is concrete in which reinforcement bars , reinforcement grids, plates or fibers have been incorporated to strengthen the concrete in tension. It was invented by French gardener Joseph Monier in 1849 and patented in 1867. The term Ferro Concrete refers only to concrete that is...

 ring beam with a rectangular cross-section of 3.5 meters × 1.2 meters (11.5 ft × 4 ft). The hanging cables rise ten meters to the top from the saddle point and the bracing cables fall four meters to the valley of the ring beam. The building is 14 meters (46 ft) tall, from the event floor to the pinnacle of the roof. The ring beam is supported by forty circular columns and four stiff pylons, all visible in the arenas facade. The pylons consist of radially oriented concrete walls, with a length of 3.5 meters (11.5 ft), which stores ventilation equipment. The video board, lights, and sound system is suspended in a radially oriented cable system anchored in the four pylons. It was not consider stable enough for colour telecasting to attach these components directly to the roof. The cable system also serves as tension rods for the ring beam.

The seating in Scandinavium is arranged in a one level monolithic grandstand. The round design of the structure and the symmetric oval shape of the 4,100 m² (44,100 ft²) arena floor results in more rows along the length of the floor. The first six rows are telescopic seating which can be electrically retracted. There are forty-four executive boxes in the arena, located between the two northern pylons.

The ice hockey rink measures 61 meters × 30 meters (200 ft × 98.5 ft) which is standard international size. New double frame half boards were installed in 2001, designed to switch to NHL rink dimensions or to be easily removed when other events than ice hockey take place. To maximize the view for spectators, a seamless protective glass barrier consisting of tempered glass panels clipped together at their top corners with clear plastic brackets is used instead of traditional plexiglass with metal dividers.

Location and transportation

Scandinavium is located in central Gothenburg, in the Heden
Heden
Heden is a ballcourt and public space/square in the centre of Gothenburg, Sweden. Football matches are played here in the run up to the final of the Gothia Cup. The final is played at Ullevi. Also the largest handball tournament in the world is played here during the summer: Partille Cup. Then...

 district of the borough
Boroughs and Districts of Gothenburg
Gothenburg Municipality , Sweden is subdivided into 21 stadsdelsnämndsområden . The term is often translated to borough. But they are really no boroughs, as they are no legal entities or juristic persons of their own, but organs of the central municipal administration...

 Centrum. Scandinavium is one of the center pieces of the event district called Evenemangsstråket, with Ullevi Stadium
Ullevi
Ullevi is a stadium in Gothenburg, Sweden. The stadium was built for the 1958 FIFA World Cup, but since then Ullevi has also hosted the 1995 World Championships in Athletics and the 2006 European Championships in Athletics, the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup finals in 1983 and 1990, the UEFA Euro 1992...

, Liseberg
Liseberg
Liseberg is an amusement park located in Gothenburg, Sweden, the park opened in 1923. Liseberg is one of the most visited amusement parks in Scandinavia, attracting around 3 million visitors annually. Among the noteworthy attractions is the wooden roller coaster Balder, voted twice as the Best...

, Universeum
Universeum
Universeum is a public science centre in Gothenburg, Sweden that opened in 2001. It is a part of Evenemangsstråket, the thoroughfare of events – close to Korsvägen and Skånegatan – which includes sights of interest like Scandinavium, Ullevi, Svenska Mässan , Liseberg and the Museum of World...

, the Museum of World Culture
Museum of World Culture
The national Museum of World Culture opened in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 2004. Its aim is to interpret the subject of world culture in an interdisciplinary way. The museum is situated next to the Universeum Science Centre and the amusement park Liseberg and close to Korsvägen."The museum interprets...

, and Bergakungen
Bergakungen
SF Filmstaden Bergakungen is a cineplex located in Gothenburg, Sweden. Bergakungen has 14 cinemas with a total capacity of 2,260 visitors. The cinema has Sweden's two largest projection screens, measuring 18 × 8 meters each.Bergakungen also has a VIP cinema. Before the film...

 nearby. Public transport is easily accessible; Just outside there is a tram stop named after the arena, which serves tram lines six, eight, thirteen, and fourteen. Tram lines four and five stops 250 meters from the arena at Korsvägen
Korsvägen
Korsvägen is a public square, traffic junction and public transport hub close to Universeum, The Swedish Fair, The Museum of World Culture and the amusement park Liseberg in Gothenburg, Sweden. A major armament of the square/junction was made in the 1990s...

, a major public transport hub, which serves more than fifteen different bus lines, and will have an underground rapid transit station once Västlänken
Västlänken
Västlänken is a planned railway tunnel under central Gothenburg. The purpose of the project is to increase capacity and reduce travel times on the Gothenburg network by changing the Gothenburg Central Station from a terminus to an underground transit station...

 is completed. Approximately one and one half kilometer north west from Scandinavium is the Gothenburg Central Station
Gothenburg Central Station
Gothenburg Central Station is the main railway station of Gothenburg and the third largest railway station in Sweden after Stockholm Central Station and Malmö Central Station. The station opened in October the 4th, 1858. Approximately 40 000 travelers visit the station every day. The station is...

 and the Nils Ericson Terminal
Nils Ericson Terminal
The Nils Ericson Terminal is a major bus terminus in Gothenburg, Sweden. It is placed in the city centre just next to Gothenburg Central Station , and across the street from the main Nordstan shopping centre. The main street and most hotels are within walking distance from the terminal.The...

, one half kilometer south east is the Liseberg station
Liseberg station
The Liseberg station is an underground railway station in Gothenburg, Sweden. It is named after the amusement park Liseberg which is located nearby. The station was completed in 1993. Local trains to and from Kungsbacka and Borås stop at the station....

 serving the Gothenburg commuter rail
Gothenburg commuter rail
Gothenburg commuter rail or Göteborgs pendeltåg is the commuter rail system associated with Gothenburg, Sweden. The trains go on the main-line tracks, shared with long-distance trains and freight trains. They are operated with X11 electric multiple units....

.

When Frölunda and the Ottawa Senators played an exhibition game on October 2, 2008, spectators could use their game tickets for free travel with public transportation within Gothenburg's municipality, before and after the game. Extra trams and buses were in traffic during this time. The campaign was a test to see if it would be possible to include a public transportation fee on tickets to future events.

Due to Scandinavium's central location the arena site itself does not have any public parking spaces, parking is only provided for sponsors, the press, and event personnel at a guard-gated parking lot next to Valhalla IP
Valhalla IP
Valhalla IP is a stadium in Gothenburg, Sweden which is home to several teams, for both Damallsvenskan and Superettan, Örgryte IS, Qviding FIF and the ladie team Kopparbergs/Göteborg FC. The stadium is situated close the river Mölndalsån and Burgårdsparken of the town and is named after the...

. Visitors are guided to eighteen nearby parking lots and parking garages—with a total of 7,000 parking spaces—by the event districts parking guidance and information system. The system has a total of 130 digital signs, located on motorways with information about which exit to use, and on streets in the city with more detailed information about directions and number of available parking spaces.

Notable events

Event Year
European Figure Skating Championships
European Figure Skating Championships
The European Figure Skating Championships is an annual figure skating competition in which figure skaters compete for the title of European Champion...

1972, 1980, 1985
World Figure Skating Championships
World Figure Skating Championships
The World Figure Skating Championships is an annual figure skating competition sanctioned by the International Skating Union in which elite figure skaters compete for the title of World Champion...

1976
1976 World Figure Skating Championships
The World Figure Skating Championships is an annual figure skating competition sanctioned by the International Skating Union in which elite figure skaters compete for the title of World Champion...

, 2008
2008 World Figure Skating Championships
The 2008 World Figure Skating Championships was the World Figure Skating Championships of the 2007–2008 figure skating season. The World Championships are an annual figure skating competition in which elite figure skaters compete for the title of World Champion. The event was open to figure skaters...

IIHF Men's World Ice Hockey Championships
2002 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships
The 2002 Men's Ice Hockey Championships were held between April 26 and May 11, 2002 in Gothenburg, Karlstad and Jönköping, Sweden.It was the 66th annual event, and was run by the International Ice Hockey Federation .- Championship :...

1981
1981 World Ice Hockey Championships
The 1981 Ice Hockey World Championships took place at the Scandinavium arena in Gothenburg, Sweden from 12 April to the 26 April. Eight teams took part, firstly splitting into two groups of two, with the best two from each group advancing to the final group. These teams then play each other in the...

, 2002
2002 Men's World Ice Hockey Championships
The 2002 Men's Ice Hockey Championships were held between April 26 and May 11, 2002 in Gothenburg, Karlstad and Jönköping, Sweden.It was the 66th annual event, and was run by the International Ice Hockey Federation .- Championship :...

ITF Davis Cup Final
Davis Cup
The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation and is contested between teams of players from competing countries in a knock-out format. The competition began in 1900 as a challenge between Britain and the United States. By...

1984
1984 Davis Cup
The 1984 Davis Cup was the 73rd edition of the most important tournament between national teams in men's tennis. 62 teams would enter the competition, 16 in the World Group, 25 in the Europe Zone, 12 in the Eastern Zone, and 9 in the Americas Zone...

, 1987
1987 Davis Cup
The 1987 Davis Cup was the 76th edition of the most important tournament between national teams in men's tennis. 71 teams would enter the competition, 16 in the World Group, 32 in the European Zone , 13 in the Eastern Zone, and 11 in the American Zone...

, 1988
1988 Davis Cup
The 1988 Davis Cup was the 77th edition of the most important tournament between national teams in men's tennis. For the first time, the Zones were divided into two groups, with promotion and relegation between the two. The Eastern Zone was also renamed the Asia/Oceania Zone. A total of 74...

, 1997
1997 Davis Cup
The 1997 Davis Cup was the 86th edition of the most important tournament between nations in men's tennis. Group IV was added to the regional Zones, with promotion and relegation between it and Group III. A total of 127 nations participated in the tournament...

Eurovision Song Contest
Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union .Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition...

1985
FINA Swimming World Cup
FINA Swimming World Cup
The FINA Swimming World Cup is an international series of short course swimming meets organized by FINA, the International Federation for swimming...

1988, 1989
FINA Short Course World Championships
FINA World Championships - Short Course
FINA World Swimming Championships or "Short Course Worlds" , are held every two years in a 25 m swimming pool. They are run by FINA....

1997
1997 FINA Short Course World Championships
The 3rd FINA Short Course World Championships were held at the Scandinavium in Gothenburg, Sweden from April 17 – April 20, 1997.-Men:-Women:-Medal table:-References:* * *...

European Women's Handball Championship
European Women's Handball Championship
The European Women's Handball Championship is the official competition for senior women's national handball teams of Europe, and takes place every two years. In addition to crowning the European champions, the tournament also serves as a qualifying tournament for the World Championship...

2006
2006 European Women's Handball Championship
The 2006 EHF European Women's Handball Championship was held in Sweden from 7–17 December. It was won by Norway after beating Russia 27–24 in the final match....

World Men's Handball Championship
World Men's Handball Championship
The World Championship in team handball for men has been organized by the International Handball Federation since 1938.- History :In 1938, the first indoor handball world championship was played in the Deutschlandhalle in Berlin, Germany on 5 February and 6 February...

s
2011
2011 World Men's Handball Championship
The 2011 World Men's Handball Championship, the 22nd event hosted by the International Handball Federation, was held in Sweden from 13–30 January, 2011...

European Athletics Indoor Championships 2013
2013 European Athletics Indoor Championships
The 32nd European Athletics Indoor Championships will be held in Gothenburg, Sweden in March 2013 ....


The arena has also hosted a Semi-final of Melodifestivalen
Melodifestivalen
Melodifestivalen is an annual music competition organised by Swedish public broadcasters Sveriges Television and Sveriges Radio . It determines the country's representative for the Eurovision Song Contest, and has been staged almost every year since 1959...

 every year since the introduction of the current format, except for 2002 itself. It was also considered to host the Final of Melodifestivalen 2010
Melodifestivalen 2010
Melodifestivalen 2010 was a Swedish song contest held between February and March 2010. It was the selection for the 50th song to represent Sweden in the Eurovision Song Contest, and was the 49th edition of Melodifestivalen...

, but scheduling conflicts ruled this out.

The arena has hosted concerts by many famous artists, spanning many different genres. Some of the first major concerts to take place at the venue were performed by the Who and Led Zeppelin during their 1972 and 1973 European Tours respectively.

Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden are an English heavy metal band from Leyton in east London, formed in 1975 by bassist and primary songwriter Steve Harris. Since their inception, the band's discography has grown to include a total of thirty-six albums: fifteen studio albums; eleven live albums; four EPs; and six...

have performed at the arena the most with a total of nine times with the latest being in 2006.

External links


The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK