A
Architecture
The simple, highly innovative architectural features of Pavilhão Atlântico are a magnet of attraction within Parque das Nações. Its design exhales modernism and the entire concept is marked by environment management concerns that never fail to charm its visitors and to inspire technically-minded people from all over the world.
B
Backstage
The corridors of Pavilhão Atlântico suffuse the visitor with adrenalin and that magic feeling of euphoria that pervades the air before each show.
And throughout the hustle and bustle of preparations, there are always reminders left behind that serve as a memento to the history of the arena.
Pavilhão Atlântico still has the deep lilac-coloured carpet that was laid on the floor of Prince’s dressing room because the superstar demanded it.
Marilyn Manson, rock’s enfant terrible and the subject of many rumours about perverse activities and even satanic rites, almost came across as a real “choir boy” after all, when away from the limelight. All the heavy security measures that were put in place to cater for possible misdemeanours on the part of Manson’s band and its fans turned out to be unnecessary.
And definite proof that you should never judge a book by its cover was the fact that Marilyn Manson’s dressing room looked spotless after he left.
Portuguese rock band Xutos e Pontapés commemorated their 20th anniversary with a celebration concert at Pavilhão Atlântico. It was an unforgettable event that brought fans from several generations together.
Daniela Mercury is also among Pavilhão Atlântico’s record breakers. Daniela’s concert brought together thousand of fans to hear this unstoppable performer from Bahia, Brazil, filling Pavilhão Atlântico to capacity.
C
Cost of construction
Pavilhão Atlântico cost about 54.87 million Euros to build. Hundreds of workers and specialised technicians built it on a total construction area of 47,000 square metres over two years and eight months.
Crab
"Limulus polyphemus", the horseshoe crab is a marine animal that evolved over 200 million years ago.
The designers of Pavilhão Atlântico took inspiration from this resilient ocean traveller to come up with the venue’s hallmark shape.
The space challenges the most conservative tenets of building design; and inside this huge marine shell you’ll find the remnants of the ribbed innards of an old caravel from the sixteenth century moored in the Tagus River.
The ship’s wooden inner rib cage and keel plunge into empty space, pointing the way to future nautical exploits.
D
Development time
Each and every single component of the wooden rib structure was laboriously designed, tested, and rectified with computer-aided design software and a total of 12 thousand working hours were clocked at the project planning stage. Subsequently, the designs were loaded into the memory of a variety of computer-controlled construction machinery to carve, saw, turn, and join all individual parts to produce the desired structural components.
E
Energy
The Pavilhão Atlântico building combines stylish architecture with state-of-the-art energy-saving, energy management, and environmental quality concepts.
The building’s acclimatisation is achieved through vents positioned behind spectator seats (exhausting low-speed air) instead of through the roof of the arena, as that would increase energy consumption.
In turn, a significant portion of the building was built below ground level, and that option reduces its thermal impact while managing to also bring its back to a human scale.
Lastly, the arena was positioned in a way that takes advantage of sunlight hours in winter, while taking advantage of available shading in summer. The water of the nearby Tagus River is use to cool air prior to insufflation. When its systems are compared with other buildings without such energy-saving design features, it’s been estimated that Pavilhão Atlântico manages to save up to 36% and 63%, in energy costs, during winter and summer, respectively.
Pavilhão Atlântico has earned international renown ever since its construction, and even prior to its construction when its application to Thermie Europe 2000 for funding was granted. Such energy-saving building classifications are only attributed to the most environment-friendly European buildings.
F
Fire protection
The materials used in the construction of Pavilhão Atlântico provide a high degree of protection against fire and earthquake shock.
After 60 minutes of burning under fire, a 150 by 60 cm beam shrinks to 142 by 51 cm. However, while fired steel loses its temper and softens, and concrete dilates and cracks, wood, albeit blackened, maintains its strength.
According to architect Regino Cruz, "it’ll be really hard to make a structure like this collapse".
Flexibility
"Flexibility" is a key word at Pavilhão Atlântico since inception. Even more than that, flexibility is a veritable tenet of its personnel’s attitude towards its present and future client business.
The management of Atlântico, Pavilhão Multiusos de Lisboa, SA, aims to widen the range of services rendered and thereby enhance its reputation as an organisation known for its high level of response to new challenges.
G
Glulam
Glulam is a type of composite wooden material (Pavilhão Atlântico used Nordic pine in its construction owing to that material’s high strength) which is formed with wooden blades glued to each other in a manner that orients the blades along a single axis. The process produces wood that is stronger than the original raw material.
Glulam is one of the most eco-friendly and flexible construction materials used in the building and construction industry. The raw material is grown from forests subject to sustainable environmental management. The selected trees do not consume much energy during growth and the resultant material is easily bio-degradable.
Albeit being initially developed for the furniture making industry, Glulam has now been in use by the building and construction industry since 1907.
Owing to its excellent weight to strength ratio, it was also used for building torpedo launcher vessels and war planes during World War II. Production of this composite wood product became feasible following the introduction of advances techniques in synthetic glue technology.
H
High Tech
We bring state-of-the-art technology to the service of knowledge and creativity. The employment of computer software to simulate the engineering behaviour of wood allowed designers to achieve outstanding results when designing Pavilhão Atlântico.
It enabled the creation of a much lighter structure than would have been the case if it had been built in concrete, while enhancing its fire and earthquake resistance features. And that’s not to mention the lower cost of construction and the excellent acoustics and thermal characteristics obtained.
I
Illumination
The arenas and the exhibition rooms are lit with natural, diffuse illumination. Natural illumination is also a feature of the peripheral lobby ring, the entrance area, and the public areas giving access to the arenas of the Atlântico and Tejo Halls.
L
Location
Pavilhão Atlântico is located between the Vasco da Gama Tower, the Pavilion of Portugal, and Oriente Station, at the heart of a triangle that has become a symbol of the new image the Portuguese have been projecting.
Pavilhão Atlântico is part of a surrounding urban development of great beauty and high quality and it benefits from a vast network of roadways and public transport systems joined at Lisbon’s most advanced public transport hub. Nearby, the Vasco da Gama Shopping Centre, the main shopping facility of Parque das Nações, is within walking distance. It is, indeed, a privileged location.
And the venue is ideal to host just about any type of event you may want to put together.
M
Multipurpose
The word multipurpose only hints at the real potential of Pavilhão Atlântico and the skills of its managing company.
Atlântico S.A. offers a wide range of services which adequately cater for an equally wide range of events: sports events, music concerts, dancing shows, congresses and conferences, business meetings and workshops, trade fairs and expositions, and so on.
Atlântico S.A. avails sophisticated technology to its clients, operated by highly qualified operators who assist and execute all necessary stage and event assembling works for any type of show or production.
In addition, Pavilhão Atlântico provides all necessary logistics and support services, namely cleaning services, and security and gate control services, providing highly experienced attendants who are capable of handling any type of delicate situation. Atlântico S.A. clients can also avail of its catering services, which are of a quality that can only enhance the success of their events.
The press room auditorium is equipped with modern telecommunications facilities, including data, sound, and video.
The facility provides simultaneous translation services as well, which are capable of handling any type of international event.
P
The Pavilhão
Did you know that if every concrete foundation pile used to lay the foundations of Pavilhão Atlântico was piled atop each other to form a single column, that column would stretch over five kilometres in height?
Or that if the 5,600 cubic metres of wooden planks used to build the roof’s supporting rib cage were laid side by side they would form a catwalk long enough to reach from Lisbon to Paris?
Each of the roof support girders measures 150 metres. And the length of the largest span of the cage’s "side ribs" is 114 metres long.
11,600 screws and bolts, 250,000 drilled holes, 180 tons of glue, and 680 tons of steel went into the construction of this structure.
Walking the 1,200 metres of the maintenance catwalks around the structure is a real challenge. Those passages are 1.10 metres wide and stand at a height of 35 metres above the ground.
Looking down is not permitted. Built who wants to look down, anyway, when you can look at a magnificent roof that looks like the interior rib cage of a sixteenth century caravel?
Q
Quality
Quality control is an ever-present, basic issue in our day and time. And so it is at the Parque das Nações development.
At Pavilhão Atlântico, quality management reaches into every detail and is a constant presence in every type and level of activity. The company is embarking on a project to introduce a number of improvements to the venue with a view to broaden the range of services on offer, always in adherence to a strict policy of offering only high-quality services.
R
Regino
Regino Cruz and SOM (Skidmore, Owings & Merrill), one of the largest and most prestigious international architectural consulting firms, were the designers of Pavilhão Atlântico.
Regino was born in Lisbon, in 1954. His training was conducted both in Portugal, at the Fine Arts College of Lisbon, and in Brazil, where he completed his studies in Rio de Janeiro.
Between 1978 and 1990 he commuted between Portugal and Brazil, working in both countries.
Regino Cruz Arquitectos e Consultores was then launched in 1990.
S
Ship
A spaceship ready to set about on the conquest of new galaxies, a sixteenth-century caravel, or a marine animal, Pavilhão Atlântico synthesises myths, utopias, and sheer newness.
Each corner has some history to tell, and it reminds us of a time when a small army of "Lilliputian" look-alike workers patiently went about building this gigantic structure.
SOM
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is an American consortium with an outstanding curriculum which includes such feats as having been awarded the tenders for the designs of the Olympic stadiums of Manchester and Berlin, and a number of projects for major sports arenas and stadiums in the United States.
SOM was also jointly responsible for the design of the Vasco da Gama Tower, sited at the northern end of Parque das Nações.
SOM’s vast experience and technical know-how enabled them to tackle the complexity of designing a project of the physical and structural magnitude of Pavilhão Atlântico.
Sports
The Pavilhão Atlântico arena is extraordinarily versatile and its spaces moulds themselves to the requirements of each particular event, whether it needs to stimulate absolute concentration, as was the case at the Lisbon Fencing Tournament of the World
Fencing Championship calendar, or to give vent to the ebullience of a World Junior Indoor Basketball Tournament or the second edition of the World Trial Kickboxing Championship.
The smaller arena, Tejo Hall, provides a more secluded atmosphere that could be of great relevance for certain types of indoor sports events.
Pavilhão Atlântico brings together all the necessary features to host shows, and events of that nature. Its 2000 calendar of events included the long-awaited edition of a Tennis Masters Tournament, which took place by end of that year.
T
Tagus
The relationship between the Tagus River and Pavilhão Atlântico is a very close one indeed.
The location of the arena, in its incarnation of a caravel, is the first hint of such a connection. But there’s more. The water of the Tagus is directly used in pre-conditioning the air blown into the venue to cool it.
There is an inextricable link between Pavilhão Atlântico and the Tagus River, and that link has contributed to the international renown of the venue. For that very reason, Pavilhão Atlântico has been labelled as an example to follow when it comes to building environment-friendly buildings.
Pavilhão Atlântico boasts one the more advanced ticket-issuing systems you can get (box office sales) and is expanding its ticketing system to sell tickets anywhere in the country or overseas. Soon, you will be able to buy tickets to Pavilhão Atlântico events on the Internet.
U
Utopia
"We then coursed into the creation of a utopian space where we would talk about the ocean as a feature of our history and of the men who often evidenced the thousand and one half-hidden facets of the human condition when at sea: valour, a thirst for adventure, fearlessness, ambition, and superstition. We would talk about the ocean as a vehicle of the imagination and as a fantasy that artists and storytellers can create. And of men of every continent joining in their fascination with the sea…"
These were the words of Wanda Caio, one of the people responsible for coordinating the "Oceans and Utopia" show.
This emblematic show, presented during the EXPO '98 event, employed a variety of special and theatrical arty effects. For the five months of the Exposition, "Oceans and Utopia” was seen by 3,286,520 people.
X
X
It is difficult to slot Pavilhão Atlântico in the corset-like narrow range of a traditional glossary. But even the letter “X” has something to add about the nature of this venue.
Pavilhão Atlântico never fails to surprise whoever visits it for the first time, either because of the sheer magnificence of its interiors or owing to the marvellous shows visitors unfailingly get to watch.
Even the exterior setting catches by surprise whoever walks around the mysterious shape of this building.
Y
Youth
Thousands of youngsters have already vibrated to the beat of their favourite bands here. And young people have been the main contributors to Pavilhão Atlântico’s increasingly assertive character.
From inception, Pavilhão Atlântico has been a venue that is capable of attracting several generations; parents and children and grandparents and grandchildren are equally capable of enjoying themselves together here.
And this is a feature that is here to stay. The type of events being hosted at Pavilhão Atlântico and the people who attend them are writing its history – the history of a venue that is open to the city, the country, and the whole world.
Z
Zeus
The gods looked like they were out of their minds… It was divine creative madness. After fire came water, the deluge, terrifying and grotesque as it was. Man braving the oceans in search of the utopia of a new continent never before reached… Atlantis. The myths, the legends. It was all there, on stage, at the "Oceans and Utopia" show, one of the most successful events Expo’ 98, in terms of visitor volumes. "Utopia is a brave ship indeed", Massimo Cacciari, O Arquipélago. A most inspiring motto for Atlântico-Multiusos SA..