forces in motion

Paris. At the next Grand Slam in Paris, the top matches will take place without breaks due to rain – thanks to a new retractable roof. MAURER equipped the slender steel construction with dampers which immediately respond to vibra- tions: to enable closing and opening of the roof without noise emission and to prevent material fatigue.

The Roland Garros tennis stadium in Paris was the last Grand Slam arena without a roof, thus making the French Open weather-dependent to the final. Now the central and largest court “Philippe Chatrier” is equipped with a retractable cover and was completely reconstructed. The expansion to 15,000 seats is the centerpiece of several years of reconstruction at Roland Garros, scheduled to be completed in 2020.

The roof consists of 11 steel box girders, one of them fixed and the others movable. Each of them supports an approx. 3m high, inclined and slightly curved “wing” serving as a rain shield. These wings make the tennis court rainproof within 15 minutes. They are moved by gears on a gear rack that rests on the outer shell of the arena.