Stade de France®: the cathedral of light

After having vibrated to the 1998 World Cup football and the 2003 world championship athletics, the temple of French sport welcomes the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

All the superlatives have been exhausted for the Stade de France® since that famous night on 12 July 1998 when France beat Brazil for the World Cup. Not surprising that a stadium, opened only a few months earlier, should become not only a symbol of French sporting success but a truly national monument. Not content to stage some of international sport’s greatest events, the Dionysian arena is also a technological and architectural showcase. This cathedral of lights, as conceived by its architects Macary, Costantini, Zublena and Regembal, is an ellipse capped by a roof floating 42 metres above the pitch. The impression is made possible by 18 steel needles piercing the roof with seeming to touch it.

Technical prowess

Inside this monumental disk of six hectares (the equivalent of the Place de la Concorde) and 13,000 tonnes, can mass 80,000 fans, or as many as 100,000 for a Rolling Stones concert. The technical prowess helps makes the Stade de France® such a multi-purpose arena: a cushion of air allows the lower stands to be slid out in 72 hours depending on the different configurations needed. The 2003 world athletic championship demonstrated this flexibility as well as its comfort, security and accessibility (1.5 km from the centre of Paris, or 9 minutes by public transport).

Three Grands Slams ... while waiting for 2007

The Stade de France® is the logical successor to the Parc des Princes where French clubs can contest the Championship shield or Bouclier de Brennus. Several months after an opening punctuated by a victory for Zinedine Zidane’s France over Spain (1-0), the Stade Français of Bernard Laporte mounted another step on its climb to the summit by beating Perpignan 34-7 in the Championship final. This same Stade Français has just attracted a club record crowd of 79,500 for its championship match against Stade Toulousain. But the Stade de France® has yet to attain the aura of an Eden Park or a Twickenham. A question of youth but perhaps also of superstition. It took France a long time to settle into their new quarters, losing four successive matches in the 1999 and 2000 Six Nations tournaments as well as to Australia and New Zealand and that after a 1998 campaign without a slip-up. It was not until the Grand Slams of 2002 and 2004 that France lost their uneasiness and could finally call the Stade home. Yet last November’s 45-6 thrashing by New Zealand stands out like a black stain on French rugby’s recent record. The 2007 Rugby World Cup will give the Stade its oval soul.

Useful information

Address
ZAC du Cornillon Nord
93216 Saint-Denis
Phone number: 33 1 55 93 00 00

Access
By train: Gare Saint-Lazare, Montparnasse, Gare du Nord, Gare de Lyon and Gare de l’Est thn public transport
By plane: Aéroport Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle or Orly
En voiture : Autoroute A10 depuis Paris
Autoroute A62 depuis Toulouse
By car: Autoroutes A1 (Sortie n°2 Stade de France ) and A86 ( Sortie n°9 Saint Denis - La Plaine Stade de France )
Public transport : RER B La Plaine Stade de France
RER D Stade de France - Saint Denis
Metro : Ligne 13 Saint Denis - Porte de Paris
Bus: Lignes 139 / 153 / 173 / 255 / 350

Key figures
Capacity in rugby configuration: 80,000
Lighting: 1,609 lux

1,750,000 spectators a year
34 months construction
17 hectares of surface area
2 giant screens of 120 square metres
45 kilometres of stands
162 private boxes
7 ,500 square metres of reception area