Sports Forum: Marathon tower and arcades
Intervention area
The refurbishment of the Marathon Tower in the Sportforum in line with its listed status has been completed. In addition to an active sports centre, the result is an event area that also presents the diverse sporting history of the historic sports facility.
The refurbishment, which was carried out in accordance with the preservation order, was accompanied by a number of changes. Two additional levels were added to the former four storeys. This resulted in a usable area of 1000 square metres, spread over a total of around forty rooms.
Built from 1933 to 1938 as a so-called command tower, the imposing neoclassical building has been given a new lease of life - Mayor of Culture Dagmar Ruscheinsky and Mayor of Construction Michael Stötzer handed over the symbolic key on 8 September. The symbolic key was handed over to the head of the office of the Olympic Training Centre Saxony e. V. on 8 September, Christian Pöhler.
The centrepiece is the prestigious reception hall. In future, successful athletes can be received in the historic ambience under the restored wooden ceiling, which is a listed building.
But it's not just the tower that has been renovated. New functional buildings have also been added to the left and right of it. They include changing rooms and sanitary facilities, storage rooms, barrier-free public toilets and a competition office.
Family day at the Sportforum
On Family Day at the Sportforum, the reopened area was part of the celebrations surrounding the 70th anniversary of the sports schools in Chemnitz.
Keyword Sportforum
With its various areas and halls, the Sportforum Chemnitz offers perfect opportunities for a wide variety of sports.
The athletics hall attracts many visitors every year to the indoor athletics meeting, and the reconstructed cycling track is also very popular with athletes and visitors. In addition to competitions, the halls and pitches offer training facilities for Chemnitz sports clubs.
Autumn 2022: scaffolding on the Marathon Tower will be dismantled
The scaffolding on the Marathon Tower at the Chemnitz Sports Forum was removed in September 2022. Building Mayor Michael Stötzer and site manager Andreas Hüppe from the City of Chemnitz's building management and structural engineering department explained the status of the work during a short tour of the tower's interior.
Work on the 27-metre-high Marathon Tower in the Sportforum began in July 2020. At the end of 2022, the upper section was handed over to the office of the Chemnitz/Dresden Olympic Training Centre, while a sports doctor and a performance diagnostics centre are also to be housed in the basement of the building.
One particular challenge was that the roof of the tower had to be removed in order to install an internal steel skeleton.
An eight metre high earth wall was built behind the functional buildings to the left and right of the tower. This is intended to preserve the old look of the main stadium. The wall is also intended to protect the athletes from the wind during competitions.
Keyword Marathon Tower / Fred Otto
The "Command Tower", later called the "Marathon Tower", was built between 1933 and 1938 according to a design by Chemnitz architect Fred Otto (1883 to 1944).Otto worked as a senior building commissioner and official building officer in Chemnitz from 1920 and as a city building officer in the Chemnitz building department from 1925.
Other important buildings by Fred Otto include the Chemnitz municipal swimming pool and the building of today's Gunzenhauser Museum in the New Objectivity style. The castle ponds in the French garden style were also created under his aegis.
Fred Otto died in Chemnitz on 22 September 1944.