On Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron and Paris 2024 President Tony Estanguet inaugurated the new Olympic Aquatics Centre in the Saint-Denis neighborhood of Paris.
The venue, which cost 188 million euros (204 million USD), has been presented as a symbolic of a number of programs related to the Olympic and Paralympic Games, including sustainable venues designed not just for the Olympic athletes, but to leave a legacy of the Games for the local French.
“We want to welcome the world, our athletes to win a lot of medals and it to be an incredible moment of French pride,” Macron said. “But we also want these structures to remain, as with the Olympic and Paralympic Village. For us, this is one of the big elements of legacy.”
The venue features an 18-metre-wide footbridge to the Stade de France. The facility has the biggest hanging roof in the world made entirely from wood, and on top of that roof sits a 5,000 square meter solar farm that will power the entire building.
The venue is part of an initiative for all new public buildings in France to be made of 50% wood or other bio-materials. The spectators seats are made of 100% recycled plastic collected by local students in Saint-Denis.
In another first, the thousands of different timber elements – spruce from Finland for the interior, French-grown Douglas fir for the outside – were sawn to size in Alsace, then transported to Paris for final assembly on site in a process likened to building a giant Lego set. “We chose to use wood not only for its technical quality, but also because it is very stable and will last for a hundred years,” explains co-designer Cécilia Gross, Architect Partner-Director at VenhoevenCS.
The news is not all positive, though. The budget was less than 70 million euros, almost tripling before final completion.
The venue is a 6,000 seat aquatic center that will become a neighborhood sports center in summer 2025. The legacy venue will have 2,500 seats, a teaching pool, fitness center, bouldering wall, climbing gym, soccer fields, padel tennis, basketball, and yoga facilities.
It features a 70-meter pool that can be divided as needed.
The Paris Aquatics Centre will play host to diving, artistic swimming (synchro), and preliminary rounds of water polo. After the conclusion of pool swimming, the knockout stage of the water polo tournaments will move to the 15,000+ seat Paris La Defense Arena, an indoor rugby seating that is receiving a temporary pool for the event.
The Aquatics Centre is the largest new-build project of the Olympic Games, and one of only two new permanent athletic facilities for the games along with the 125 million euro Porte de La Chapelle Arena that will host badminton and rhythmic gymnastics.
In total, the Olympic Games Paris 2024 have accelerated the construction and renovation of 25 pools across Ile de France, including 18 in Seine-Saint-Denis. Between 2021 and 2023, 26,000 children – including 9,400 in Seine-Saint-Denis itself – benefitted from the Paris 2024-led 1,2,3 Swim program, which recruited qualified trainers and provided free swimming and water safety lessons for people of all ages.
The inauguration program included diving ceremonies to entertain the gathered dignitaries and public.
😍😍😍😍 #Paris2024 https://t.co/zXzr6aLSrP
— World Aquatics (@WorldAquatics) April 4, 2024
They can easily make that back selling assorted pastries & crusty breads at the concession booths.
looks beautiful, I love architecture
https://www.parisladefense-arena.com/evenement/jeux-olympiques-et-paralympiques-de-paris-2024/
This is the link to see what it will look like.
Seems like they spent around $20M on a pool and $180M on other unnecessary stuff.
The swimming events will take place in western Paris in an indoor rugby stadium / arena for concerts.The venue will be transformed in may. With 17 000 seats.
This venue is northern Paris, just for diving, artistic swimming and water-polo. But the pool will host European Championships in 2026.
Source?
So they will need to build a temporary pool for warming-up and down ? I am wondering about the air quality. The pool sits next to 2 major motorways.(Google Earth 48°55’23.68″ N 2°21’25.98″ E)
Wood inside a building with continuous water vapor?
Yeah, that would last a long time.
🙄
Im sure the engineers on this 200 million dollar project have figured out how to seal the wood from water damage
I guess saunas are physically impossible then
Is the swimming pool is also as hot as sauna?
This is honestly a quite ugly pool. The London venue may be 13 years old now but looks much better than this. Not talking about showers and changing rooms, just the pool. Shower water pressure in London sucks.
I think it looks fantastic.
With 6000 seats? The London Aquatics Center, during the games had a capacity of 16 300 seats. Reduced nowadays to a few thousand only. What is so fantastic about it? 70 meters pool that can be adjusted as needed? Someone will be warming up next to you while you are competing? The warm-up will be in what 20 meter pool? Are you kidding me?
16,300 seats is overkill for a swimming venue, as swimming is not a mainstream sport in any country. It’s a niche sport everywhere, and that’s fine. There is a reason the London Aquatics Center’s capacity was reduced.You’re going to get a lot of empty seats, even at major events.
China is way more populous than the UK, and the swimming venue with the largest capacity in the country is the Hangzhou Olympics Sports Center natatorium, which was built for the Asian Games at 6,000.
The IU natatorium has the largest capacity in the United States at 4,700.
I think you haven’t read the text. This aquatic center is different from the place where the swimming events will take place. The Arena La Défense is a hall with 40,000 seats, 17,000 of which will be used for competitions. another 50-meter swimming pool will be reserved for training in the same room, behind the Olympic enclosure
The pool is 25m wide.
OK I have just found out swimming will be elsewhere. Then ok this pool is an ok one for artistic swimming and diving. It fits the purpose.
Here is the link where you can see the pool for swimming events. A temporary venue with 17000 seats.
https://www.parisladefense-arena.com/evenement/jeux-olympiques-et-paralympiques-de-paris-2024/
Backstrokers are so screwed with this roof lol