Built in 2003, the Football Globe is a mobile interactive sculpture intended to draw attention to the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Art Event architects created a 15-metre-high steel structure with an adaptable, illuminated shell. In the interior, a two-level exhibition transmitted the history of football and the enthusiasm the “beautiful game” generates. Exterior light effects and projections transformed the ball by day and night: during the day, it looked like an enormous football, while lit at night it resembled a globe, symbolising the significance of the World Cup as a global event.
The Football Globe made a promotional world tour, spending two months in each of the 12 host cities. Logistically, the journey was extremely demanding. The 60 tons of steel hidden behind the 736 m² façade had to be dismantled and
then rebuilt at each stop. Pentagonal and hexagonal panels made of triple-layered membrane were fastened to the steel structure. The top and bottom layers of the membranes consisted of 200-micrometre-thick, pressed ETFE membrane, and the middle layer of a PVC-covered polyester material. To provide optimum visuals, the exterior and interior of the pentagonal fields was black, while the hexagonal fields were white on the exterior and black on the interior. No fewer than 20,000 high-performance LEDs in the form of chains of light were built into the space between the layers, enabling the exterior skin to be transformed. A special fastening system was developed for this project to make the structure more economical and easier to dismantle and rebuild. The EPDM profile was even used for producing the sides of the airbag
