Megastructures: Real Madrid Super Stadium (Megaestructuras: El Bernabéu del siglo XXI)

Real Madrid has won more Champions League titles

than any other football team.

It has over half a billion online followers

around the world.

Voted best club of the 20th century by FIFA,

it's now gearing up for a stadium renovation,

to keep it a leader into the 21st.

We wanted to take on the challenge

of making it even more monumental.

So that beyond playing football,

it could be the entertainment center that Madrid needed.

If you work for a club that wants to be

a global benchmark, the world's best,

its home has to be a global benchmark and the world's best.

The new stadium will dazzle with a new steel shell

and a fully retractable roof.

It will boast a massive, 360-degree video scoreboard,

as well as an underground logistics ring.

And revolutionary technology will allow it

to grow and store the turf underground.

But Real Madrid insists on playing in its home stadium

throughout construction.

And such a huge demand

means things are going to get very complicated.

It's insane

from a project management standpoint.

Designers and engineers will have to think

outside the box

and borrow solutions from other disciplines

to try to untangle each building challenge.

No one has ever taken on a project

like this one, anywhere.

Five years of work in the heart

of the European Union's second most populated city,

an army of workers launched on an extraordinary adventure

that will push them to the limit.

Watch out, watch out!

Stop, stop, stop!

In the center of the Spanish capital,

Real Madrid embarks on a radical transformation

of its arena.

And it wants it done in three years.

The new stadium will be encased in metal.

It will have a new roof, with a retractable mid-section;

8,000 square meters of surface area

can be opened or closed as needed.

A 360-degree video scoreboard will be created;

4,000 square meters of screens.

And the construction of an underground logistics ring

with street access will allow trucks and supplies

to reach all points of the complex.

Each one of these undertakings

would be very significant, complicated,

and massive on its own.

But this project brings them all together.

This monumental facelift will require

working around a set of limitations.

Much of the original stadium and its 77-year history

must be preserved.

A train line running just below the pitch must be skirted.

And it will all go down in the heart of a city

of nearly 3.5 million inhabitants.

Yet, the main obstacle is something else altogether.

One of the conditions was that Real Madrid had to play

every home game in their stadium.

The first big challenge

is removing the old roof.

1,200 tons of steel

that a handful of specialists will have to dismantle

in a balancing act at 70 meters in the air.

This one, that one and that one have to go.

It's so windy!

Stop! It's windy up here!

Don't blow me away. The wind is trying to blow me away.

Stop! Stop, stop, stop!

Okay, bring it up!

This intricate work will take six months.

Meanwhile, the demolition team attacks the outer perimeter.

By summer, work is underway in every corner of the stadium.

This is a compendium of all the problems

you can find in our work.

Problem of logistics, problem of technique, problem of design.

We are working on the play ground,

we are working in the stands, we are working on the roof.

We are working in the logistical ring.

If you are working outside, you need to close all the space

in order to avoid problems of safety.

And this is really complex.

Project management works to keep it

all under control.

But they have no idea what's in store for them.

The basis of this overhaul is a huge metal box

that will protect the old structure,

while holding up the new façade and roof.

Two main mega-trusses span nearly 180 meters

and weigh 2,000 tons each.

And they can not be assembled on the pitch.

[Carlos López-Palanco, translated] No one has ever had

to build a structure like this

and not been able to work from underneath.

We brought in design innovation

and building methodology from big bridges.

The parts of tall bridges under construction

cannot be lifted from off the ground.

It's the same here.

We wanted to make sure that whatever needed to happen

inside the stadium could happen.

Because it's a football stadium.

This operation began months ago,

nearly 600 kilometers away.

This is where the roof's metal structure

is being manufactured.

250 workers in rotating shifts, 24 hours a day

in order to deliver 14,000 tons of steel in record time.

But their job is far from over.

The Santiago Bernabeu Stadium

has four bases like this one,

and they are critical cornerstone pieces

that hold up the building's entire roof.

The joints between the parts

must be made to perfection,

and it will take 250 tons of solder to do so.

Any welding error in load-bearing joints

of a structure of this kind

would have very serious consequences.

The structure of the new roof

will weigh twice as much as the Eiffel Tower.

The total length of this truss is 180 meters.

And they each weigh around 2,000 tons.

The project includes two.

Here, we have a mock-up assembly of a quarter of a truss.

This mock-up at the workshop

is to check for any faults.

But the job will only be done

once it gets installed in the new stadium.

Today is a decisive day.

The hardest part of the assembly

is joining the two halves.

And there's no room for error.

The structure arrived as separate parts,

and were then assembled on either side of the stadium.

Up top, there's only room for a handful of specialists.

The two 500-ton pieces have to be perfectly aligned,

and all without occupying the playing field down below.

Down. Keep on bringing down.

Down.

Okay, Fran, hold it right there.

Okay, hold it right there, Fran. Put a bolt in there.

This is the first time this has ever

been done, and I don't know if anyone will dare to do it again.

It will take three days

to fit the mega-truss together.

Together with its twin,

they'll support the full weight of the new roof.

Orchestrating each and every job in the heart of Madrid

is another insurmountable task on this project.

The logistic of the project is close to hell.

We are dealing each day with traffic collapse,

with the lack of space for storage

and the lack of space for installations.

The lack of space for machinery.

I think that we have needed to use at the same time

more than 15 cranes.

Not only the fixed cranes, but moveable cranes,

big moveable cranes, so, up to 800 tons capacity.

And all this has to be developed in a very small space

that it's two weeks needs to be used for one match.

In a few hours, Real Madrid will face

Manchester City, and the stadium must be transformed.

The routine is always the same.

Clear out the machinery, clean and prep the space.

Getting it all ready to welcome the fans is a full day's work.

The main problem is the fact that you have to deal with

80,000 people coming to the stadium

with all the requirements of safety accomplished.

The five fixed cranes are also impacted

by the safety measures.

Two hours before game time,

operators take up their spots high above,

to keep the cranes away from the stands

and the playing field.

Crane two in position. Okay. Okay.

Turn off the power

and you don't need to touch the crane at all.

Down below, the stadium belongs to the fans

for a few hours.

Real Madrid is playing in the European Champions League,

the contest between the world's most important clubs.

The crane operators stay up until one hour

after the stadium has been cleared.

Up the field, straight in there, shot a goal.

Out of bounds!

No one could see it coming,

but the routine of alternating between the renovation

and sporting events is about to come to a crashing halt.

We're deeply concerned

by the alarming levels of spread and severity.

We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19