Morocco has released a stunning new design for the Grand Stade Hassan Stadium II, which will seat 115,000 people and is being built for the upcoming 2030 FIFA World Cup.
The entire complex will be covered with a tent-like roof, known as a moussem in Moroccan culture, which will be made of a thin aluminum grid. Botanical gardens can be found around the tent’s massive entrances, which stretch over 92 feet high, while the stadium sits in the center, and once finished, it will seat over 115,000 people, making it the world’s largest soccer stadium. You can check out some images of the upcoming stadium below.
It will be located around 25 miles from Morocco’s largest city of Casablanca, in the town of Benslimane, and will be surrounded by lush forest. It is named after King Hassan II, who was the King of Morocco from 1961 until his death in 1999.
The project is being designed by Oualalou + Choi, a French architecture firm who also worked on the Expo Dubai 2021 and the Expo Milan 2015, and Populous, an Australian firm who have been involved in dozens of major stadiums around the world, including the Las Vegas Sphere, India’s Narendra Modi cricket stadium, Qatar’s Lusail Stadium, and Atlanta’s Truist Park– in fact, Populous has built 20 of the United States’ 30 Major League Baseball stadiums in addition to over a dozen NFL stadiums across the country.
The stadium will be the most prominent of Morocco’s six stadiums that will be used for the 2030 World Cup, which will be hosted across three continents. The tournament will use three stadiums in Portugal, 11 in Spain, six in Morocco, and one in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay– it will be the first FIFA World Cup to span multiple continents: Africa, South America, and Europe.
Image courtesy of Oualalou + Choi