Chelsea’s Brave New Stadium Looks Like A Beautiful Amphitheatre From The Distant Utopian Future (Images)

Chris Wright

3rd, July 2015

9 Comments

By Chris Wright

Soccer - Battersea Power Station File Photo

Having seen their original plans to convert Battersea Power station into a new 60,000-seater stadium with a chimney on each corner scotched back in the summer of 2012, Chelsea returned to the drawing board and set about dreaming up exciting new ways to spruce up Stamford Bridge instead.

Two and a half years on down the line, the Blues have offered forth a set of prospective plans for a total development of their erstwhile home ground, plans that would add another 18,000 seats to The Bridge’s relatively quaint existing capacity of just 42,000 at a cost of £500million.

As detailed in the Guardian’s Art & Design section, the sketches for the Neo-Stamford Bridge have been produced by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, who have designed a new home for Chelsea “inspired by the Gothic architecture of Westminster Abbey” – and you can tell.

Few details have been revealed so far, but the project appears to be making a drastic leap away from recent years’ lightweight approach to stadium design, instead opting for a massive masonry language of heavy brick piers and soaring vaults, recalling London’s Victorian railway viaducts.

According to architect Jacques Herzog, his stadium resembles “a castle, or a medieval walled village” with a slender zig-zag cage of columns that rise to meet over top of the stands…

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As per the Guardian, an elevated brick bridge will connect the stadium to nearby Fulham Road, “bringing supporters directly into the stands above a world of bars, cafes and shops in the arches beneath the structure”…

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The area beneath and between the giant concrete facades and the back of the stands will create a “dramatic, nave-like space”…

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Beautiful. Like the sepia illustrations from an old science fiction novel.

As Herzog himself puts it, the stadium is “beyond beauty or ugliness”.

We’re inclined to agree. It has a strange, atmospheric and ethereal quality – like it exists in both the distant past and the distant future all at once.

(Images via Guardian)

Posted in Chelsea, Newsnow, Photos

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9 Comments

  1. One Man Went to Mow says:

    Ohh God I hope Chelsea get this Stadium. I know it’s a long way from happening, but if the finished article is anything like these initial plans Chelsea will have one of the greatest stadiums ever built. Look at it what a thing of beauty.

  2. matty says:

    Still be full of cunts though…

  3. John says:

    I think you are on drugs.

  4. Mr Sensible says:

    It’s a bit fascist looking, the monochrome mock-ups don’t help. At least instead of Nazi flags they’ll have plenty of plastic Chelsea flags to put up.

    It’s different at least and kind of goes with the bad guys image Chelsea seem to portray.

  5. Gandalf says:

    Stunning. Original. Utterly Unique. Very impressed with this design. The atmosphere produced by the home crowd in this Cathedral like environment could be a return to the din of the 70’s. Bring It On.

  6. Terry Gilliam says:

    I think you meant “Dystopian Future.” Like in the movie BRAZIL. Even worse, I can’t recall any football being played in it.

  7. Terry Shedingham says:

    It sounds like a good idea on paper, but those mockups just make it look like some neo-brutalist nightmare.

  8. Anonymous says:

    A far cry from my first visits just after WWll but most welcome.
    PS Will they put back the dog track?

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