General Information

Stade de France, situated in the commune of Saint-Denis, is the national stadium of France. With a capacity of 81,338, it’s the 6th largest European stadium. It’s used for international competition by both the France rugby team and the French national football team, which defeated Brazil 3–0 in the FIFA World Cup Final contested at the stadium.

Additional Information

The Stade de France is listed as a category four stadium by UEFA and has hosted matches for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, some matches for the 1999 Rugby World Cup, 2003 World Championships in Athletics, and the 2007 Rugby World Cup making it the only stadium in the world to have hosted both a Football World Cup final and a Rugby World Cup final. The facility also hosted the annual Motorsport event Race of Champions in 2004, 2005, and 2006 before the event moved to Wembley Stadium in London. The stadium hosted the 2003 World Championships in Athletics and since 1999 it has hosted the annual Meeting Areva athletics meet.

Architecture: Highlights

In 2002, the International Association for Bridge and Structural Engineering (IABC) awarded a prize recognizing the unique structure of the Stade de France, commenting that the Stade de France exhibited ‘a construction of an attractive open architecture of the city, with an elegance and natural lightness’.

Architecture: Explained

The stadium was notably designed with the assistance of a software simulation of crowd in order to get an accurate observation of how it would look fully developed. The facility was intended to develop the area of the Plaine Saint-Denis, which straddles the communes of Saint-Denis, Aubervilliers, and Saint-Ouen. The primary goal was to renovate the area by building new residential and tertiary sites.

The Stade de France has a movable stand which can be retracted to uncover part of the athletics track. The Stadium was built without any underground heating, as noted when Ireland were due to play France in the Six Nations Tournament rugby union match of 2012, in which the game had to be cancelled because of the frozen pitch.

The construction of the Stade de France’s roof cost over €45 million to complete. Its elliptical shape symbolises the universality of sport in France. Its area of 6 hectares and weight of 13,000 tonnes is considered a technical marvel by many. It was designed to easily protect the 80,000 spectators without covering the playing field. All lighting and sound, which include 550 lights and 36 blocks of 5 speakers, are housed inside to avoid obstructing visibility. The tinted glass in the centre reduces the contrast and distributes natural light. It filters out red and infrared radiation, however, it allows blue and green lights, due to their necessity for the health of the turf.