Trade fair hall 13, Hannover

The site of the EXPO trade fair hall, with the main east–west avenue of trees in the north and a adjacent low-rise housing development in the south, led to a form for the hall that is dramatically directed towards this avenue. A low height service and storage spine provides the transition to the scale of the housing development in the south. The exposition hall, which measures 105 x 240 metres, is intended to be used for sporting events as well as for exhibitions and there-
fore has to be free of internal columns. So that the hall could be erected in a way that uses resources sparingly despite this requirement, we minimised the structure stepwise with regard to the amount of both material and labour required. In this respect, a cat-enary curve and an arch seemed sensible.