Most urban architecture critics rarely have the chance to review a new sports stadium, since they normally come along only once in a generation. Not so for writers living in, or making their way to, Cape Town, South Africa, which is home to five new stadiums that have been built to host the upcoming World Cup. The tournament’s flagship stadium, dubbed Green Point, has opened to the public, and Guardian art critic Jonathan Glancey has taken a look at it.

The $571 million arena is a feat of engineering brilliance, according to Glancey, who labels it “the jewel in South Africa’s World Cup crown” (an odd choice of epithet, as England used to refer to its colonial holdings in India in the same way). The structure contains 68,000 seats with views that are “truly spectacular,” 250 VIP lounges, 530 toilets, 16 elevators, four television studios, 115 entryways, one jail for rowdy hooligans, and a series of cafes, kitchens, and shops designed to entertain soccer devotees and disinterested tourists alike.

Not everyone is as excited for the upcoming tournament as Glancey, though. Australian Craig Tanner has made a documentary that alleges that the energy that the relatively poor nation has devoted to the World Cup has been a colossal waste of money. “When you build enormous stadiums, you [are] shifting resources ... from building schools or hospitals,” the former anti-apartheid protester Dennis Brutus says in the film.

So is it a successful soccer stadium? Glancey says that it is impossible to judge before the tournament has started. Architectural feats aside, the play on the field will determine its historical importance.