Stade Atlantique Bordeaux Métropole
Pine-forest-inspired concrete columns ring a forty-two-thousand-seat arena built through a fiercely contested public-private deal.
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About this audio guide
Stade Atlantique Bordeaux Métropole in Bordeaux rises on concrete columns styled after the pine trunks of the nearby Landes forest, but the guide follows a very different kind of forest: the contracts and lawsuits that grew around its 2011 public-private financing deal. It traces the opposition group Trans'CUB's fight against builders Vinci and Fayat, the Bordeaux council members who took the case to France's highest administrative court, and Mayor Alain Juppé's financing plan that pushed the stadium to completion in time for Euro 2016. It follows the money through relegations and a naming deal that ended early, and the losses that piled up for the private operator afterward.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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