I already wrote a first report two months ago about those strange buildings being currently on interrupted construction: I visited the unfinished Museum of Beaux-Arts and the unfinished Grand Theater. Here is my report about the unfinished-abandoned Sport center designed by the Australian firm Populous (the firm which designed the sport facilities in Nanjing for the China National Games), also explored on November 2015 and once more in January 2016. This sport center has a stadium and three gymnasiums, as you can notice on the former planning project.

Sport center project, 2011

But right now, it looks like this, abandoned for more than three years:

 

 

 

 

This exploration was quite worth it, not only did I find strange architecture, I also found another swimming pool, adding it to my collection of abandoned pools here and here!

The stadium

The first building one notices is the 30,000 seat stadium: huge architecture and strange designs make it really easy to see from far away.

The first gymnasium

The first gymasium has a total capacity of 8,000 seats.

The second gymnasium

Just like the other sites, this multi-sport training center was left completely empty and unlocked…

The third gymnasium: swimming pools!

As you can see on these pictures, the project was really (too) ambitious. The 1,500 seat natatorium was a brilliant discovery but it made me wonder about the use of such a professional equipment in such a small city… There are two huge swimming pools and a third pool specifically dedicated to diving. Maybe that is a bit much for Datong, and perhaps it explains why the project did not get enough funding to get finished…