An ambitious and unusual renovation project plans to transform former racetrack grandstands overlooking a motorway by 2021
Hamid Djadda is leaning out over the handrail on the stepped concrete grandstands of what was once one of the most famous raceways in Germany.
Opened in 1921, it was a marvel of the burgeoning automotive age: two long straights, capped by a hairpin turn and a wide arc just before the finish line. On race days, up to 4,000 people watched daring racing car drivers pilot the latest advancements in auto engineering, breaking land speed records – or crashing to their deaths trying.
After nearly a century hosting sporting events including motorcycle races and Formula One, the Automobil-Verkehrs und Übungsstraße (Automobile Traffic and Practice Road, or Avus) held its last race in 1998, and the concrete grandstands were left to slowly disintegrate.
Nearly three years ago, Djadda bought this roadside anomaly – which is now a listed historical building – and with Hamburg architect Christoph Janiesch has devised an ambitious plan to revive the grandstands. Djadda wants to turn the decrepit hall and announcer’s box into a glass-walled event venue and bar overlooking the autobahn. Offices are to be built into the voids beneath, lit by a dozen skylights in the stands. These will double as large vitrines lining the structure’s 240-metre length, and will display vintage automobiles where the crowds once sat, like a high-speed drive-by museum of the history of the car.
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