Estádio Municipal de Braga
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Estádio Municipal de Braga (English: Braga Municipal Stadium) is a football stadium in Braga, Portugal, with an all-seated capacity of 30,154, built in 2003 as the new home for the club Sporting Braga and as a Euro 2004 venue. Its architect was Portuguese Eduardo Souto de Moura.
It has one of the most spectacular settings of any stadium in the world, as it was carved out of a quarry (Monte Castro) that overlooks the city of Braga. The enormous earthmoving process contributed heavily to its €83.1 million cost, more than any other of the Euro 2004 new venues except for the Estádio da Luz in Lisbon, which has more than twice the seating capacity of the new Braga stadium.
Unlike most major stadiums, Braga Municipal only has stands along the sides of the pitch. Behind the goal at one end are the rock walls of a mountain and at the other is an open view over the city sprawling in the distance. Each stand is covered with a canopy-style roof, and these are connected to each other across the pitch by dozens of steel strings, a design apparently inspired by ancient South American Inca bridges.
The stadium was inaugurated on 30 December 2003.
[edit] Trivia
- This stadium was the home of the Minho Campus Party in 2004.
[edit] External links
- Braga stadium page on StadiumGuide.com (with photographs)
- Braga stadium design page on WorldStadiums.com (with photographs)
- afaconsultEngineering design firm of the Braga Municipal Stadium
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- Satellite image from WikiMapia or Google Maps
- Street map from Multimap or GlobalGuide
- Aerial image from TerraServer
| Main Portuguese football stadia |
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Alvalade | Aveiro | Bessa | Cidade de Coimbra | D. Afonso Henriques | Dragão | Algarve | Luz | Leiria | Municipal de Braga |
