Nokia Arena (When at Lerman Architects & Town Planners)

Project Data

Area: 24,000 sqm

Lot: 16,916 sqm

Client: Sports Palaces Inc. (city-owned company)

Construction: 2001-2007

Budget: ~24M$

Type: Public Building, Intervention in an existing building, Including new zoning plan.

Project Text

Built in two stages – in the early sixties as a single stand stadium and in the late sixties as a double stand covered arena, the Josef Burstein Arena – known commonly as “Yad Eliahu” (the neighborhood within which it lied) was the biggest arena in Isreal, recognized with its successful home team “Maccabi Tel-Aviv”. The building was a fine example of brutalism architecture, built entirely of concrete, but was also completely opaque, detached and with no relationship to its surroundings. The public spaces in the building were insufficient, and the building could not allow maximization of profits during the games.

The new design of the building reclaimed different areas of the building as public spaces, clearing most services spaces into basements below the arena and its surrounding court, and adding additional space through a new curtail wall enclosure. The public circulation of the building became a spectacle – activating the surrounding court, as circulation was transferred from within the arena to a surrounding mezzanine, exposed to the large court within which the building lies.