Birmingham City FC has unveiled its new sports stadium at the heart of a £2.4 billion sports quarter
Knighthead has unveiled the designs for Birmingham City Football Club’s new stadium, developed by Heatherwick Studio and MANICA Architecture.(Image: Nick Wilkinson)
The Blues’ vision for a £1.2 billion super stadium in the heart of east Birmingham has finally been unveiled – and it’s instantly iconic.
Without fear of contradiction, no other stadium in the world looks like it. But that’s not necessarily a good thing.
It’s been dubbed a ‘modern day coliseum’ by chief cheerleader Tom Wagner, who is fronting the project for Blues owners Knighthead.
READ MORE: Birmingham City new stadium live – Sports Quarter centrepiece unveiled by Tom Wagner
He called it magnificent and a powerhouse, a venue that would put Birmingham on the global map, and potentially help attract back the best footballers in the world. All of that is true.
But at first glance there is something jarring about the contradiction of red brick chimneys that circle the pitch inside.
Towering more than 100 metres into the East Birmingham sky, the chimneys are redolent of Birmingham’s industrial heritage.
The 62,000-capacity stadium, located in Bordesley Green, will sit at the heart of the planned Sports Quarter development.
It feels more like a sledgehammer blow than a subtle nod to history, and one that brings to mind the choking coal fumes, dirty factories and slum living that were also part of Birmingham’s Victorian past.
It also suggests a city leaning on past success, not a forward looking cutting-edge city.
That’s clearly not what was behind the thinking of the architects, nor those who picked it as the winning design.
“Definitely not,” says Eliot Postma, from architects Heatherwick. “This stadium is unashamedly future based,” he said.
READ MORE: Birmingham City unveil new stadium with enormous chimneys dubbed ‘Powerhouse’
“So yes, absolutely, we wanted to grow the building out of the site it’s located on but they aren’t just Victorian chimneys…these are hardworking, innovative pieces of structure that happen to have a material link to the past. But this is an incredible piece of engineering.
“Those chimneys are holding up the roof, they are part of the natural ventilation strategy, they are providing amazing framed entrances, and there are going to be experiences to be enjoyed inside the chimneys, you will be able to move around inside them.
“So we absolutely see it as the cutting edge of a stadium design. It has a retractable roof, a movable pitch; it will be a place that will host football, but also every event under the sun, from the world’s biggest touring concerts to boxing matches to the NFL.
The ambition is for the new stadium to be completed in time for the start of the 2030/2031 football season. (Image: Nick Wilkinson)
“It’s absolutely up there. We’ve got the most modern stadium in the UK, in the world, and we couldn’t be more excited about that.”
He added: “And unapologetically we want people to look at the stadium, to talk about it and know exactly what city the stadium is rooted in.
“Most modern stadiums could be anywhere. That will not be the case here.”
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