In Birmingham, a Stadium Plan Shows UK Football’s Flashy Side
Thomas Heatherwick’s Birmingham City FC stadium plan is both a statement-making spectacle and a sign of the growing US influence on the English sport.
The smokestack-like towers in Heatherwick’s proposed “Birmingham City Powerhouse” are meant to evoke the city’s industrial heritage.
Source: Heatherwick Studio
It’s not hard to detect the hand of Thomas Heatherwick in the new stadium for the UK’s Birmingham City Football Club. True to his reputation for eye-catching, vaguely steampunk-ish designs, the British starchitect has proposed a 62,000-seat football stadium ringed with a dozen chimney-like brick towers that would be visible from 40 miles away. If renderings of the facility are accurate, the building will look a bit like a huge 12-legged masonry bug flipped on its back.
The faux smokestacks, which will contain elevators (one leading to a circular bar at the top), are supposed to evoke Birmingham’s industrial past, according to Heatherwick Studio. The towers are also designed to help hold up a retractable roof structure and channel the crowd roar upward, reducing noise pollution for nearby residents.