Gustible - under the rubric of [$_SELF]

Lindy and I had the opportunity to attend the first lecture in the Cape Town , Green Point Stadium 2010 lecture series a while back – in mid-July as a matter of fact. The outline of the lecture series can be found here, on WhatsOnSA.
The lecture itself was fascinating – the stadium in Cape Town is not even the largest of the 2010 stadiums in South Africa, but the project is astoundingly complex.
For example – when construction started, measurements were taken on Signal Hill – a very visible geographical landmark from the stadium. But as the stadium was built, the original landmark was not visible from the middle of the construction site anymore. The answer ? Construct a 16 meter high concrete tower in the middle of the field, in order to be able to calculate an accurate measurement using the same original landmarks. The tower will be torn down before the games begin, of course.
The roof of the stadium consists of massive pieces of fabric, weighed down by glass…this is to withstand the tremendous lifting power of the south-easterly winds which howl across the Cape Town City Bowl during the period from October to February.
The Greenpoint stadium will forever change the face of Cape Town. And it is going to be a change for the better.
You can see a slideshow of the 2010 stadium on my Flickr account – here.
I hope to visit the stadium again before completion, and add more photo’s.
The stadium, in these photographs, looks like the gun turrets of some mighty and (yes, I know, paradoxically and all) ancient spaceship. Got to love it.