Paris La Défense Arena | 2Portzamparc

The Stadium “Paris La Défense Arena” project hosts indoor the rugby team “Racing-Metro 92”, the club of Hauts-de-Seine county, the French rugby legend since 1882, regained in 2006 by its president Jacky Lorenzetti. The stadium is also being used as a large performance space accommodating 10,000 to 40,000 people. It is the largest indoor multipurpose facility with variable capacity in France.

It is located in the town of Nanterre feet of the “Grande Arche” of La Défense. This project falls within the scope of operation of national interest “Seine-Arche”. It stands in the rectangle formed by the new neighborhood’s road grid "embedded" in a dense urban fabric. It has a horseshoe layout; one side is formed by an office building which will house the Hauts-de-Seine County Council in April 2018. It was to build the house of “Racing”, an ultra-modern enclosure, whose club will draw most of its financial resources by organizing, beside of rugby match, entertainment of all kinds.
To express its identity as a performance space, the architect has installed a main entrance on the core axis of La Défense, and as in all major stadia, the access points are on the three sides of the U shape.
Under the seating, the space is totally occupied by reception areas, dressing rooms and refreshment areas, to give them light from the street. And surrounding the lower part of the seating, a “necklace” of glass scales forming a regular series of shells in white and gray aluminum and lightly serigraphed glass. This necklace illuminates the lobbies and dressing rooms.

Client: Racing Arena, Jacky Lorenzetti
Architect: Christian de Portzamparc
Acoustic: Avel Acoustique, Jean-Paul Lamoureux
Lighting: Paris Lighting, Jean-Pierre Touvret
Scenography: Theatre Projects Consultants, Findlay Ross
Engineering & Design:
General contractor: VINCI Construction France - GTM Bâtiment
Control office: Veritas
Fluids: SNC LAVALIN
Structure: Structures Ile-de-France