The Owner of Chelsea football club, Roman Abramovich has unveil his remarkable vision for the future of the Premier League champions on,at the start of a three-day public consultation at Stamford Bridge.
Speaking from the consultation,he said the exhibition for local residents will be the first glimpse for Chelsea fans of Abramovich’s blueprint for a rebuilt 60,000 stadium that he wants to be a cathedral of football, paying homage to the club’s history at their one and only venue.
SEE THE PHOTOS BELOW
The design of the four new stands will take their inspiration not from the uniform style of most recent stadiums, but from the buttresses, pillars and gothic architecture of Westminster Abbey in whose diocese Stamford Bridge once stood
And the history of the club’s surrounding neighbourhood has been studied to the extent that a modern version of Stamford Bridge itself — first mentioned in 1410 to be in need of repairs in the court rolls of Henry IV — will be part of the grand design more than 600 years later, going back to the future.
This attention to detail has even included researching the exact shade of the original Chelsea blue.
The building plan — with no estimated cost at such an early stage but likely to be well in excess of the mooted £500million — is being financed by Abramovich, who is conducting the whole ambitious project as a separate entity run by his people away from Chelsea Football Club business.
He has assembled a professional A-list team comprising a masterplan architect (Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands), stadium architect (Herzog & De Meuron), strategic planners (Aecom), railways and transportation (WSP) and structural engineers (Schlaich Bergermann & Partner) to work on the plan.
It would see Chelsea spend three seasons playing at a temporary home, with Wembley and Twickenham two possibilities.
Abramovich, who bought Chelsea from Ken Bates in 2003, is understood in June 2013 to have finally reached the conclusion that the club should stay at Stamford Bridge and extend there rather than move elsewhere
This follows a frustrating decade in which Abramovich examined a number of fanciful proposed alternative sites including Earls Court, Battersea Power Station, White City, and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. But none proved feasible — with the only winners being those who collected the numerous consultancy fees.
Billionaire Abramovich’s eureka moment has led to his handpicked group working for two years towards this first consultancy exercise, which will take place in the East Stand.
The fine detail will see the Chelsea owner and his building team work within the contours of the current site at Stamford Bridge, with the new four stands even following the angles of the old singular North Stand and the shape of the ground as it was in 1939.
Most of the new seating capacity will be in the South Stand and the two hotels on the concourse will be demolished, with Abramovich wanting his new Chelsea to be for football only.
The benefits to the neighbourhood will include long-planned pedestrian walkways above the railway lines that define the boundaries to two sides of the site, plus seats reserved for local residents.
Despite the disruption the building of a new stadium will cause to locals, Chelsea fans can be assured that it will at least guarantee the Abramovich ownership dynasty.
Part of Roman’s reasons for wanting to spend the best part of another billion pounds on Chelsea is to eventually hand over a stadium fit for a European football superpower to his eldest son, 21-year-old Arkadiy, who has inherited his father’s love of the club
0 comments:
Post a Comment