The Sports Quarter and stadium that isn’t going to be built (copyright: T Wagner) has taken another significant step in the dream to reality stakes.
Blues announced that British designers Heatherwick Studio will partner with Kansas-based architectural ‘powerhouse’ MANICA to deliver the club’s new stadium.
They won the paid competition to design and build the 60,000-seat ground that will be the centrepiece of the £2 billion – £3 billion Sports Quarter on land in East Birmingham, roughly a quarter-of-a-mile outside the city.
The combination is basically the best of the best – world renowned and proven in their field.
Blues fans cannot fail to be excited about the subsequent possibilities.
Heatherwick are bold and innovative. They have won more than 100 international awards for design excellence and have a team of 250 architects, designers, makers, engineers and landscapers.
On their website, they say ‘We want to see a world where the buildings and places around us are radically more joyful, engaging and human’.
MANICA – their website is here – worked for Populous to create England’s national stadium, Wembley.
They are behind the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders $1.5 billion Allegiant Stadium (pictured), which features ‘horseshoe-shaped seating that is open to create a 200+ foot-wide, column-free, panoramic view of the iconic Las Vegas strip’.
They led on the $1.4 billion Chase Center, the home of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, which incorporates vistas of San Francisco Bay and the construction of a five-and-a-half acre waterfront park.
The new $655 million stadium for both Milan football clubs is to be fashioned by MANICA, and they are providing technical support to the $750 million renovation of FC Barcelona’s Camp Nou.
The firms will be supported by Steven Knight, to ensure the project has a distinct Birmingham feel.
Blues chairman Wagner descibed Knight as the ‘cultural adviser’.
Wagner famously joked that the Sports Quarter and stadium would not built, in response to scepticism from supporters of rival clubs, when it was announced funding had been secured to upgrade Metro and transport links to the site.
Speaking at the Regional Investment Summit in Edgbaston alongside Chancellor Rachel Reeves, Wagner revealed the details of the stadium collaboration.
He said it the partnership would create something “truly extraordinary, recognisable around the globe, yet rooted in the history of Birmingham”.
He said the pitch by Heatherwick and MANICA stood apart from all the others.
“We felt really celebrated. Not only the history of the club, but more importantly, the history of Birmingham, and ties together what we are trying to do in the future with the incredible past of the city of a thousand trades.”
The stadium is ‘of Birmingham, of the site’. “It will all make sense when it comes out,” Wagner added.
Thomas Heatherwick, founder and design director of Heatherwick Studio said: “This is going to be an incredible piece of city built around the passions of the Blues fans and the community.
“Not another spaceship dropped in a car park which feels dead when there’s not a match, but somewhere that’s alive, connected, grown from the site and from the history of Birmingham itself. We couldn’t be prouder.”
David Manica, president and owner of Manica Architecture, added: “We’re thrilled to partner with Heatherwick Studio to design an extraordinary new home for Birmingham City Football Club. This new stadium will not only usher in a new era for Birmingham fans but will honour the club’s passionate supporters and storied history.”
Design imagery of the stadium will be released in the coming weeks, Blues stated on their website.
