Wels (AT)

Exhibition Centre Wels

The new Wels Exhibition Centre not only impresses with its modern, aesthetic architecture. Thanks to excellent teamwork between the project partners, this technical masterpiece that would have been a challenge even without the tight schedule was completed in an extremely short construction period.

Less than two years passed between the time that the decision to build a new exhibition hall was made and the first time that it was used. WIEHAG received written confirmation of the order to manufacture and assemble the bearing system and the roof and wall panels in October 2006.

Project description

Exhibition Centre with arched support structure

In record time, the working drawings were created based on AT4 Architekten ZT GmbH's structural and architectural plans, and the individual components (up to 46 m long, 4.50 m high and about 6 m wide) for the arched beams were produced in multi-shift operation – over 5,500 m³ of timber was used in total.
To simplify assembly on site, the bottom and top chords for the support structure, as well as the roof and wall panels, were delivered to Wels with the highest degree of prefabrication – the first of the three arched support structures had already been assembled by 5 December 2006. To transport the oversized arched beams to the construction site, a specific route had to be planned that could accommodate the 40-metre turning circle of the special transport vehicles.
The three arched support structures with a parallel bottom chord and a clear span of 90 m are characteristic of this building. The roof panels prefabricated by WIEHAG were also mounted parallel to the displacement of the 90-metre long support structure for the exhibition hall. A roof area of up to 800 m² was laid each day. It took just over five months to erect the largest timber building in Upper Austria with its 16,000 m² of floor space – larger than two football pitches put together – at Wels Exhibition Centre. The building could already be used for the first time at the "Energy-Saving Trade Fair" in March 2007.