Spaladium Arena

Brief Information

Spaladium Arena was built for the 2009 World Handball Championship, but its design was planned from the start to serve more than a single tournament. It is not one universal hall, but a complex with a large arena and a small hall: the first hosts matches, concerts, and boxing bouts, while the second is used for sports activities, training, and instruction.

The main fact here is connected not with the opening date, but with the difference in scale within a single building. The large arena covers 28,500 square meters and seats from 10,931 to 12,339 people, while the small hall has 4,100 square meters, 150 seats, and a 40-by-20-meter court. As a result, the place reads as sports infrastructure with two modes of operation: a public one designed for thousands of spectators, and a training one that is much more intimate.

What to Notice First

It makes sense to compare the large arena and the small hall as two different parts of one concept. The large arena is associated with handball, basketball, concerts, and boxing, so its key feature is capacity, which changes depending on the event format. The number of seats itself shows that the space must be reconfigured for different patterns of use, rather than serving only one sport.

The small hall is important as a contrast: its area, 150 seats, and dimensions of 40 by 20 meters describe not a spectacle venue, but a working sports space for activities, preparation, and instruction. This pair of halls explains why the arena became home to the Split basketball club: the building combines major public events with regular sports work. From this angle, Spaladium Arena is interesting not only for its scale, but for the way spectacle and training are separated inside it.