Archinect - News

Abu Dhabi announced as second Sphere venue location

2024-10-15T14:01:00-04:00

The second iteration of the popular Sphere venue will be located in Abu Dhabi after officials from the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi (DCT) announced a deal with its New York-based holding company Sphere Entertainment.

The first Sphere location outside of the United States is part of the intended vision of CEO James Dolan for a global network of venues and will require the DCT to pay a franchise initiation fee for the use of proprietary designs and intellectual property. It also aligns with Abu Dhabi's larger 2030 Tourism Strategy, which spurred an investment equal to at least $10 billion.

The DCT Abu Dhabi will also be asked to pay an annual fee to use the Sphere’s creative and artistic content. Populous’ original design for the 20,000-seat Las Vegas Sphere cost a total of $2.3 billion to construct between 2019 and 2023.

This ends some speculation as to where the Sphere would exp...

Plans for London’s Sphere are no more as developers abandon project

2024-01-09T11:29:00-05:00

The developers behind the proposed MSG Sphere in London have withdrawn plans for the project. In a letter to the UK government’s Planning Inspectorate, developers Madison Square Garden Entertainment (MSG) said that the scheme had become “merely a political football between rival parties.”

Plans for the Sphere first emerged in 2018, with planning permission filed in March 2019. London’s mayor Sadiq Khan was originally supportive of the scheme upon its announcement, but a combination of negative feedback in planning officer reports and backlash from locals saw Khan refuse the project permission in November 2023.

The saga continued in December when the UK’s Housing Secretary, Michael Gove, asked for the plans to be personally reviewed by the Planning Inspectorate, which falls under his department. With both a UK-wide general election and London mayoral election set to take place in the country later this year, the project was set to become a major campaign issue between Gove’s ruling C...

South Korea moves closer to getting its own MSG Sphere

2023-12-16T08:00:00-05:00

South Korean media outlets are reporting on a deal that would bring a new MSG Sphere design to the Seoul region just weeks after its controversial London predecessor was rejected over suspect environmental impact assessments and local opposition.

The new 20,000-capacity venue will feature a 1.2 million LED display, the same numbers as the now-open Las Vegas counterpart. The potential satellite would be included in the city of Hanam’s K-Star World project, a mixed-use district totaling 900,000 square meters and located roughly 12 miles to the east of the capital’s Gangnam neighborhood, according to the Korea Economic Daily.

"If Hanam attracts Asia’s first MSG Sphere, it will be an opportunity for Korea’s entertainment industry to take a quantum leap in attracting huge overseas investment and tourists," Mayor Lee Hyun-Jae told the paper in August.

He was reportedly looki...

UK Housing Secretary Gove will re-review London Sphere planning permission after Mayor's refusal

2023-12-02T03:00:00-05:00

Two weeks after London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced his refusal of planning permissions for the controversial MSG Sphere development planned in East London, the UK’s housing chief has issued a rebuke that may leave some glimmer of hope for the project’s eventual realization.

Several UK-based outlets are now reporting that Housing Secretary Michael Gove has asked the London Legacy Development Corporation to have the plans reviewed personally by his office before a final decision can be made. The countermand means another six week’s wait for the project, which has caused a torrent of backlash from critics and local residents since first being introduced in January of 2018.

James Dolan, Executive Chairman of the Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp., however, told the Evening Standard that Khan’s decision represented the “end of the line” for his company’s pursuit of the project in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Previously on Archinect: So much for the controversial London Sphere afte...

The Sunset Strip may get a mini Las Vegas Sphere-ish display

2023-11-09T17:45:00-05:00

A new spherical LED billboard display appears ready to grace Los Angeles’ Sunset Boulevard as planners are preparing to review a developer proposal for "The Sphere on Sunset" entertainment venue in West Hollywood.

Urbanize LA was first to report on the Las Vegas Sphere-like structure before it goes up for review in front of the West Hollywood Planning Commission's Design Review Subcommittee today (November 9).

The project would culminate at 8410 Sunset Boulevard. Its brief calls for the demolition of an existing café at the site, an outdoor video display, and construction of a 49-foot wide sphere and a 2,460-square-foot building to be used partially for podcast production. A new 2,400-square-foot pedestrian plaza and 1,350-square-foot roof terrace/viewing platform will be enacted as well. Los Angeles’ SAEE Studio is listed as the architect.

Image courtesy SAEE Studio

The project hopes to follow in the 516-foot-wide footsteps of the wildly successful Las Vegas Sphere, which has drawn...