Fortuna has a new home

The "Südstadt Legend" has a new home

Fortuna is iconic—there is no doubt about that! The name Fortuna is deeply rooted in Cologne's Südstadt district.

Even if the club is recognized nationwide and has occasionally made headlines. After all, the club's 70-year history has seen a wide spectrum of sporting and financial ups and downs.

It is precisely this that has turned the club's fans into such a tight-knit community. "Football is lived and fought for here. It is honest football that takes center stage in Cologne's Südstadt," as stated on Fortuna's own website (www.fortuna-koeln.de/club/suedstadt-kult/).

The many private, corporate, and institutional sponsors and supporters are eloquent testimony to the club's popularity.

The extension was built onto an existing smaller structure that still houses the club restaurant today. The building is heated via district heating through underfloor heating. The roof is flat and covered with bitumen membranes. The planning and construction work was carried out by Architekten Ingenieure Billstein (billstein-koeln.de/). Reinhard Jo Billstein and his team also created the installation plan for the facade cladding panels, which are arranged in continuous bands in both portrait and landscape formats. The contract for the facade design was won by the roofing company Vierling Bedachungen GmbH (www.vierling-dach.de/), also based in Cologne, and the company haushaut, which supplied the aluminum composite panels for the facade.

The "Hausgrau-pearls" finish from haushaut provides a perfect contrast to the Fortuna red of the windows and doors.

The substructure was prepared in advance using a thermally insulated cross-grid with vertical support battens and a ventilation layer. The haushaut panels are in the "Grau-pearls" color, as are the window and door reveals, which could thus be produced tone-on-tone using haushaut strip material. Materials from haushaut in the same color were also used for the parapet flashing and drainage elements.

With the wooden substructure, the experts from Volker Pies' team at Vierling Bedachungen had to compensate for some unevenness in the concrete.

For just over a year now, the "Südstadt Legend" has had a new home. With the help of the city, the state, the DFB, and the club's many loyal sponsors, a new youth performance center was realized at the Sportpark Süd (Vorgebirgsstraße). Located right next to several playing fields, it houses changing rooms, lecture halls, showers, and toilets, while the upper floors contain the business center and offices, including the club president's office. The project's supporters are "immortalized" on a wall right by the entrance. The building is a clearly defined cube made of cast concrete with a complete aluminum facade cladding.

The installation plan for the haushaut composite panels was created by Billstein Architekten.

Now based in Düren, haushaut was, at the time of the Fortuna clubhouse construction, a Cologne-based subsidiary of the globally active Pohl Group, which is still headquartered in Cologne today. haushaut has since made a name for itself internationally, as the company's durable and stylish products for roofs and facades have convinced many experts and end customers at home and abroad of their quality (www.haushaut.com). The aluminum composite panels were delivered to the construction site via specialist retailers, adjusted to the specified grid by the Vierling Bedachungen team, and professionally installed according to the installation guidelines.

The gray of the facade contrasts excellently with the Fortuna-red windows and doors, conveying a professional and stylish impression. Fortuna Köln now has a stable and representative new home that will serve as a hub for the club's players and fans for many exciting years to come. We wish the club and its new home all the best!

Points 5 and 6 of the club's mission statement are easy to endorse and support (even for non-Cologne residents): "5. We see ourselves as part of Cologne's urban society and take responsibility for the people in our neighborhood and beyond. 6. We build on mutual support, tolerance, and respect. We speak out against any form of racism, discrimination, and violence. Together, we represent our club as fair, open, hospitable, down-to-earth, and approachable." All of this together creates the special "family flair" of the community around the Südstadion, which keeps fans and the team together even in difficult times. The legend lives on!