Pala Livorno

The birth of the “Pala Livorno” was a very troubled one: works started in 1988 but it was inaugurated only in march 2004 as “Pala Algida”. In the 80's Livorno had two quite good basket teams in first division. Now, twenty years later, it has practically none.Born as a “Palazzetto dello Sport” (indoor arena for basket) is now used for many different purposes, mainly musical events. It has surface of 10.000 square meters, a capacity of about 8.000 people and parking space for 1.300 vehicles.The main characteristic of this building is the roof: a giant dome of 109 meters of diameter, 33 meters high that is completely made of wood.I took this photo from the round walkway hanging from the dome, just where you can see some of the light in the image above. Offices, storage rooms, a medical center and spaces reserved for police and firefighters are placed in the body of building around the central arena.A bank of collapsible bleachers used to enhance capacity for special events. Did you guess who let me inside? My friend Stefano.