Telekom Dome

The Telekom Dome does not pretend to be anything other than what it is: a basketball hall with capacity for 6,000 spectators. The place opened in 2008 and has held that shape ever since.

Its face is the thing that catches the eye. These are the only details worth noting; the rest is grey stone and concrete.

Inside, the floor is wooden parquet. That is the only surface that matters here. The team that plays there is Telekom Baskets Bonn, competitors in the Basketball Bundesliga (BBL). The arena replaced the Hardtberghalle, which had served the club since 1996.

The architect was Jan van Dorp from Bonn. The city owns the place and operates it. There have been no major renovations since it opened, so the interior looks much as it did on the day it first hosted a game.

It is not a football stadium. The surface is wood, not grass or artificial turf. There are no former names for the arena; it has always been called Telekom Dome. The confusion over a Vienna venue is a mistake in the database, not a fact of the building itself.

The place is functional. It does not claim to be a landmark. It holds games, and when the last whistle blows, the crowd files out through the same gates they came in through. That is all there is to say about it.