Man Utd’s new stadium will be ‘global destination’, says architect Lord Foster
By Simon Peach, PA Chief Football Writer
Manchester United’s bold design for a new 100,000-seater super stadium would only take five years to build and be the heart of “one of the most exciting projects in the world”, according to architect Lord Norman Foster.
The Premier League club had been looking at either redeveloping the nation’s largest club stadium or building a new one on adjacent club-owned land.
United have now confirmed they will pursuing the new £2billion ground as part of a wider regeneration project, with details and concept images released on Tuesday of what has been called ‘New Trafford Stadium’ by the architects.
Foster + Partners’ design features three striking masts – with two rising 150 metres and the other reaching 200 metres – and the stadium would be built out of 160 pre-fabricated sections.
Lord Foster, the founder and executive chairman of the architecture firm, said: “This has to be one of the most exciting projects in the world today.
“The three masts, the trident, visible from 40 kilometres, 200 metres high, so this becomes a global destination.
“Normally a stadium would take 10 years to build. We half that time to five years. How do we do that? By pre-fabrication, by using the network of Manchester Ship Canal, bringing it back to a new life.
“Shipping in components, 160 of them, Meccano-like and then we rebuild the Old Trafford station and that becomes the pivot, the processional way to the stadium – welcoming and at the heart of a new sports-led neighbourhood.
“It’s walkable, it’s well served by public transport, it’s endowed by nature, it learns from the past, it creates streets. It’s a mixed-use, mini city.”
United would continue to play at Old Trafford until the new stadium was ready, with Sir Jim Ratcliffe hoping the striking design would become a tourist destination in the north of England like the Eiffel Tower is in Paris.
“It’s not just a new stadium,” the co-owner said. “It’s a bit more than a new stadium because it’s obvious that the more iconic or more extraordinary that the stadium is, the more successful the regeneration scheme will be.
“I think a really good example is the Eiffel Tower. Everybody around the world knows the Eiffel Tower and I’m sure there’s many people here who have visited the Eiffel Tower. You go to Paris, you stay in a hotel, you spend money.
“We have one billion people around the world who follow Manchester United and they will all want to visit this stadium.
“You can see the design and take your own view as to how iconic you think it is, but I think everybody in the world who is interested in Manchester United – and football – will want to come and visit this stadium.”
How United fund the project remains unclear but Ratcliffe said on the eve of the announcement that they “don’t need any government funding” for a new stadium.
However, the co-owner has stressed it would have to be part of a government-supported project to regenerate the area around Old Trafford.
He added: “If the government really gets behind this regeneration scheme, then we, with Norman Foster’s vision – and Norman in my view is the greatest architect in the world – we will build an iconic football stadium.”
