herzogdemeuron.com
Even though Chelsea isn’t experiencing a good moment in the Premier League, its president Roman Abramovich thinks that it’s important to look to the future with optimism. For this reason, the project for the new Chelsea’s stadium has been presented, a futuristic structure entrusted to the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, already well known for building several stadiums around the world, such as the Allianz Arena in Munich and the National Stadium in Pechino.
160 documents were needed to persuade the community to tear down and restore the current house of Chelsea, the historical Stamford Bridge, built back in 1876 and restored only in the ‘90s. The tug-of-war with the community and, above all, the municipality of Hammersmith and Fulham has been strong these years; the argue was due to both the importance of where the stadium takes place, a crucial area of East London, which couldn’t sustain a massive restructuring, and the lack of other solutions in other areas of the city not far from the Chelsea and Fulham districts.
The new stadium will provide 60.000 seats, increasing much capacity compared with the 41.600 seats of the Stamford Bridge. Due to the narrow room that surrounds the stadium, it was impossible for the designers to amplify it even more, but with the expected seating, it will be the largest stadium of London, along with the Emirate Stadium.
The costs of the operation are about 700 million euros, a paltry amount of money for Abramoich, and it will be supervised by Keltbray, a demolition company, as well as by Herzog & de Meuron themselves.
From a structural point of view, what catches one’s eye are the 264 brick columns that settle the backbone of the stadium, alternated with wide glass walls and decorative metals that produce a silver effect that’s reminiscent of gothic cathedrals, a theme followed by the architects especially for the parietal zone, formed by arcs and ribs. Primary and secondary buttresses interchange with each other transforming themselves at last in steel beams that sustain the proper structure of the stadium, made of metal itself.
Between the playing field and the external zone of the stadium there is an intermediate zone that extends for 5 layers in height and 3 layers underground, a solution reminiscent of the Colosseum that allows audiences to reach easily their seats without facing steep stairwells; all of this is completely on view thanks to opaque glass panels put between the buttresses.
As regards transportation, the current Fulham Broadway station exit will be used and will be extended up to the proximity of the stadium, without undermining the District Line and the Fulham Road.
At the moment the projects will take longer and the consultations are open until 8 January, when the projects will be analyzed by the London districts of Fulham and Hammersmith. If every permission will be allowed, the works will start at the end of the season with the extension of the subway. By the next season the Stamford Bridge Hotel, bars and restaurants will be demolished and eventually also the team will leave the stadium in May 2017, to allow the work to start from June 2017 to September 2018. After this it will be the turn of the excavating works, and then the proper construction works will start, that should end by August 2020. But, since they are British works, they’ll be on time.
