Rowing competitions have been held in Bled for a very long time, but this year the city is reaching a new level - at the end of August it will host the World Championships. In anticipation of this important event, a new Rowing Center was built, designed to provide the required number of spectator seats.
Since the stands were to be located on the very shore of one of the most beautiful and cleanest lakes in Europe, the authors of the project paid close attention to the architectural appearance of this structure. In particular, the emphasis was placed on making the new building visually perceived as an organic part of the existing slope. That is why all the office premises of the center are hidden underground, and wood has become the main finishing material of the spectator stands. Moreover, the tree, impregnated with protective compounds, but deliberately not painted - retaining its natural shade and gradually fading in the sun, it, according to the architects, "grows old" along with the slope.
The underground part of the complex houses ticket offices, souvenir kiosks, cafes and toilets. The entrance to this public zone, safely hidden in the bowels of the slope, is organized from the embankment and one of the streets closest to it. The spectator seats themselves are traditional "steps" running down the steep bank to the water itself, and above them the architects placed a narrow elongated parallelepiped, sheathed with a thin wooden lath. This volume accommodates sports commentators' booths, television control rooms and VIP stands.
A. M.
