At last, Foster's project for the reform of FC Barcelona's 1957 stadium has been unveiled this saturday Sept. 22: Foster adds a festive, colorful, sort of snake-like skin -a mixture of Nouvel's pixellate Agbar Tower and H&dM's inflatable Allianz Arena-, reminiscent of Antoni Gaudí's "trencadís" (that old ceramic breakage technique) you can find in Park Güell or the Batlló House in Barcelona...
This is just the first idea -which won the competition against H&dM, Carles Ferrater and SANAA among others-, but it already shows how it could be.
Works will be carried on without stopping the competitions (check out the link below to see the process of covering the stadium without interfering with the team's activity).
I'm no expert on Foster's recent career but for what I can remember of his highest achievements -Nimes, Ipswich, Commerzbank, Hong Kong, etc-, and leaving aside the new Wembley in London, this must be the "funkiest" Foster I've ever seen... seems like he -like did Nouvel before- has been absorbing too much old Catalan Art Nouveau (Modernisme) to design something like this (maybe Foster's happier than ever or the city's amiable spirit got him).
This explosion of colour mixed with his trademark eco-high-tech may have unpredictable results but it sure is an exciting proposal.
The stadium should be ready by 2011-2012.
FC Barcelona official site (pics and video) | Prev: 1 | 2
15 Comments
IMO seems foster has learned a thing or two from HdeM.
like formal plasticity maybe?
I guess one probably gets tired of being the golden boy of cold corporate architecture. This is definitely more 'frivolous' than most of his work -including extravaganzas like that geometrical peace pyramid in Astana- but the stadium needed something like this ... well, maybe not exactly like this huge confetti-like skin, but something with the same "light", partyesque feeling
we won't see the real thing in 5 years though.. I bet most people couldn't imagine how H&dM's bird's nest in Beijing would really look like by looking just a couple of renderings, no?... time will tell.
when i heard that foster had won last week, i was assuming it would be another 'boring' structural looking stadium. so - i think its great that it is partyesque as you call it Medit.
it will be interesting to see the other entries.
I say partyesque because most fans don't give a damn about the finesse of the details of the architecture or if the stadium respects the Catalan traditions or if it's "less or more Foster" than other Foster projects, they just want to spend a good time, an evening with good football, a couple beers and a celebration if Barça wins that night - so the stadium's physical presence should add to that gathering, festive occasion too. me thinks..
yes, there'll be an exhibition at the Catalan Association of Architects this next Monday with all the other 9 entries... as soon as there are images available I'll add them here... for now all I've seen was the other participant that came close to get the competition, Carles Ferrater - he explained his proposal (if you can read Spanish) here (last article)... this -also a sort-of big Allianz-like bubble- was him with his entry a couple days ago:
and I'm curious to see the entry where you said you participated too (Claus En Kaan right?)!
btw, in the club's website there's a quite explanatory visual analogy between Foster's skin design and that of Gaudí's on top of the Batlló House (1906)... the famous trencadís:
Gaudí's:
Foster's:
(well, that pic isn't exactly trencadís but the rooftop of the Batlló House which reproduces at a bigger scale the ceramic breakage that can be found in other parts of the house... the ceramic dragon skin-like roof looks like this:
about the project at Foster's website
on a side note, i seriously thought it was a mistake in soccer connotation, as it reminded me of the colombian birdman...
i am struggling with linking the stadium to barca, and gave up in trying to link it to gaudi's free flowing organic architecture...the geometrical nature of the stadium, prevents me from making any analogies to gaudi's work...
and to continue with the HdM's visual analogy:
but Gaudí's work is not only free flowing organic architecture.. there's a very particular aesthetic attached to it.. that's from where Foster's inspiration (and Nouvel's with the Agbar Tower) comes from
most people who go to the stadium -people who doesn't know, and doesn't care, about architecture- does not think of Gaudí's work in structural -wether you're tinking about the space between the structure or the structure itself- terms but in aesthteic ones, and in that sense, even those people can understand what links Foster's colorful net of panels to Gaudí's -and Jujol, etc- ceramic trencadís
that Colombian birdman is funny :) - and quite revealing .. Foster's design strategy really resembles more to those colorful superposed feathers than that big inflatable tyre in Munchen! - talking about seeing the structural concepts of Foster's skin beyond its aesthetics!
gallery with the finalists... check out H&dM's scale model - is there some Toyo Ito in there?:
http://www.elperiodico.com/info/galeriasv2/galeria.asp?idioma=CAS&idgaleria=922
more shots -different angle- of the finalists:
http://www.elmundodeportivo.es/web/gen/20070925/noticia_53397168077.html
"Unfortunately stadium architecture has become about the number of colours a building can be illuminated in."
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