The competition and the designer: where the idea of suspended stands came from

The decision to build a voivodeship entertainment and sports hall in Katowice was taken at the end of the 1950s. In 1959 a closed architectural competition was commissioned, to which four architects were invited. The assumptions were more modest than the later result: an auditorium for eight thousand permanent seats, the possibility of holding non-sporting events, a training ice rink and a gymnasium.

In spring 1960 the competition jury chose the entry of a Warsaw team from the Bureau of Studies and Standard Designs for Industrial Construction. According to some sources the authors were the architects Jerzy Hryniewiecki, Maciej Gintowt and Maciej Krasiński, whereas the dzieje.pl portal writes of a design by Maciej Gintowt and Maciej Krasiński. The main originator and structural designer of the hall was Wacław Zalewski, with whom Andrzej Żórawski and Aleksander Włodarz collaborated. The designers wanted to show stands hanging in the air, and this gave the whole building the shape of a truncated inverted cone. In choosing it the jury stressed the boldness of the structure, but also that it would be costly and difficult to carry out.

The design became a sensation: its model appeared on the covers of many European professional magazines. The hall was originally to stand in Chorzów, in the Voivodeship Park of Culture and Recreation, not far from the Silesian Planetarium, within the Silesian Park. The final decision to carry out the project was taken personally by Jerzy Ziętek, and with it the location was changed: the hall stood closer to the centre of Katowice, by the roundabout that today bears his name. At the same roundabout is the Rondo Sztuki gallery.

Building on ground left by former mining

For the construction a site was chosen where in the first half of the 19th century the Bogucice zinc works Franz and Fanny had operated, and later stood the so-called Maria's Manor, which survived until the 1960s. The terrain had a varied relief, and underground there was partly collapsed and unrecorded infrastructure. Alongside there was still a mine operating, today known as the Katowice Coal Mine, in whose buildings the Silesian Museum is housed.

That is exactly why the structure looks the way it does. The hall touches the ground over a very small area. The reinforced concrete foundation bowl takes the form of a prestressed ring and rests on 40 columns that can tilt, to protect the building from ground movements caused by mining damage. Prof. Irma Kozina recounted that Wacław Zalewski thought of the hall as a ship on a stormy sea, which holds up best by having as few points of contact with the ground as possible.

Above the bowl stands an auditorium in the shape of a truncated inverted cone with a span of 126 metres, built on 120 steel ribs. The roof is stretched on 120 steel cables running radially to a ring with a small parabolic dome in the middle. It was one of the first structures in the world realised on the tensegrity concept. The dome is meant to light the arena, which is why its axis is offset from the centre of the roof's ellipse.

Disputes over calculations and the surveyors' mistake

Construction began in 1964 with earthworks, replacement of soil and bedding under the foundations. In 1966 two buttresses by the ring cracked, and a commission of experts found errors in the static calculations of the lower part of the steel structure. There were also discrepancies between the calculations of the Warsaw design office and the Silesian University of Technology, and Jerzy Ziętek tried to smooth the dispute over. In a document of 13 January 1967 the scientific and consultative team accepted the designers' original calculations, including the kinetic system of foundations, and the suspension of work was lifted. In 1968 the main roof ring and the dome itself were installed.

The first building of the complex to be handed over, in 1969, was the ice rink hall, called Satelita. A mistake by surveyors meant that it was built too close to the later Korfantego Avenue, so the architects had to change the design and add a ramp leading to the rink's balcony.

Opening in 1971 and where the name came from

The official opening took place on 8 May 1971 as part of the celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of the Third Silesian Uprising, the memory of which is preserved by the Monument to the Silesian Insurgents standing on the other side of the avenue. The Śląsk Song and Dance Ensemble performed, as did Anna German and Ewa Decówna. Finishing work lasted until December 1971. At the time of opening the hall was the largest entertainment and sports venue in Poland, and its construction cost considerably more than assumed in the first plans.

The official name was the Voivodeship Entertainment and Sports Hall. The colloquial name came from the similarity of the form to the flying saucers known from science fiction novels of the 1960s and became widespread at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s.

The hall's two lives: sport and music

The facade is covered by 30 thousand scales, originally of asbestos cement, today aluminium. To this were added clinker brick, washed river pebbles, raw concrete of the balustrades and crushed white porcelain decorating the roof overhang. Besides the main hall the complex includes an ice rink, a gymnasium, a recreational swimming pool and a hotel. Dzieje.pl states that the stands hold 11 thousand people, and according to other sources the hall has 11,016 seats, including a retractable part.

The first international event was the European wrestling championships in April 1972. The hall later hosted championships in ice hockey, volleyball, basketball and handball, and since 1985 the Rawa Blues Festival has been held here. Metallica's first concert in Poland was played in the Spodek in 1987.

Today the Spodek stands in the Culture Zone together with the seat of the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Silesian Museum and the .KTW office buildings. It is described in a separate entry: Spodek.

A monument entered in the register

The hall complex, that is, the main hall itself, the ice rink, the hotel pavilion, the gymnasium, the office buildings and the square in front of the hall, was entered in the heritage register of the Silesian Voivodeship by decision of the Silesian Voivodeship Conservator of Monuments of 13 May 2025. Architects quoted by dzieje.pl on the occasion of the 50th anniversary unanimously stressed that the structure remains inspiring: according to contemporary designers, even today it is hard to imagine how to calculate it and lift the dome to such a height.