Gelora Bung Karno Sports Complex

The Gelora Bung Karno Main Stadium in Jakarta is a place that has always been larger than the game played on it. It opened for the Asian Games in 1962. It is a monument as much as a sports venue.

What is most distinct about the ground today is the roof. The translucent PTFE panels, shaped to resemble lotus petals, are a sharp departure from the brutalist concrete that forms the rest of the structure. They filter the Jakarta sun and give the interior a different quality of light, one that separates the pitch from the humid city outside. It is clean.

The stadium is the home of the Indonesia national team. The attendance record remains a relic from a different era, a moment when the crowd reached 150,000 for a local derby between Persib Bandung and PSMS Medan. That figure is now impossible to replicate under the current configuration.