Stadium Braga, Portugal

Braga Municipal Stadium is a football stadium built especially as one of the hosts of Euro 2004. Of the seven new stadia built for the occasion Portugal, the Braga has been identified as the most spectacular, and was named by UEFA as one of the most interesting works in the landscape of sports structures .

The architect in charge was Eduardo Souto de Moura, who twenty years before then built in the rural outskirts of Braga her first book, Carandá market. With the stadium, has returned to this city, midway between Oporto and the border with Galicia, to realize his project of greater physical and symbolic dimension.

The pot or box of candy from the traditional fields of football, with high emotional temperature, is here replaced by a dry and monumental stage for sports broadcasts, media recognizing the nature of contemporary football. The work is often considered one of the most original and beautiful stadiums in the world. The huge rock that was removed during construction contributed greatly to the final cost of 83.1 million Euros, more than any other of the ten new stadiums built for Euro 2004, except for the Estádio da Luz in Lisbon and the Stadium do Dragão in Oporto.

With this project, innovative in its formal aspects and constructive elections, the architect won the 2005 47th FAD Architecture Prize.

Currently, equipment is rented by the SC Braga, who used it as their playground. Temporarily for the duration of your lease, the club changed its name, being known as the Estadio AXA.