Architecture, Manchester, Manchester United, Culture Business | The Guardian
Local lad Norman Foster’s plan envisions an enormous canopy over a new stadium and a ‘mixed-use mini-city’. But, given the club’s £1bn debts, the idea seems as flimsy as its own tensile membrane‘What Manchester does today,” Benjamin Disraeli once proclaimed, “the world does tomorrow.” So begins the breathless promotional video for Manchester United’s proposed £2bn football stadium, summoning the words of the Victorian prime minister to launch Norman Foster’s vision for a “mixed-use mini city” beneath a gigantic, three-spired tent.The only thing is, the world has seen quite a lot of big tops before. There is something decidedly retro about the plans, which depict a vast tensile canopy stretched over the 100,000-capacity stadium and its surrounds, covering what Lord Foster says will be “arguably the largest public space in the world”. Putting something bigger than Tiananmen Square under a tent doesn’t sound like a particularly appealing prospect, but then the Man Utd mantra appears to be bigger is better. Continue reading…
Local lad Norman Foster’s plan envisions an enormous canopy over a new stadium and a ‘mixed-use mini-city’. But, given the club’s £1bn debts, the idea seems as flimsy as its own tensile membrane
‘What Manchester does today,” Benjamin Disraeli once proclaimed, “the world does tomorrow.” So begins the breathless promotional video for Manchester United’s proposed £2bn football stadium, summoning the words of the Victorian prime minister to launch Norman Foster’s vision for a “mixed-use mini city” beneath a gigantic, three-spired tent.
The only thing is, the world has seen quite a lot of big tops before. There is something decidedly retro about the plans, which depict a vast tensile canopy stretched over the 100,000-capacity stadium and its surrounds, covering what Lord Foster says will be “arguably the largest public space in the world”. Putting something bigger than Tiananmen Square under a tent doesn’t sound like a particularly appealing prospect, but then the Man Utd mantra appears to be bigger is better.
