Stadiums Rock, Telegraph

As sport demands ever more spectacular arenas, the architects behind them are raising their game. By Bettina von Hase.

Sport now our society so completely that stadium architecture has become a global phenomenon. It seems that barely a week passes without the unveiling of a new architectural master plan. And nowhere are such plans more visible than in the two upcoming Olympic cities: Beijing and London. The Swiss architect duo Herzog and de Meuron are working on the Chinese capital’s first Olympic stadium, while in London the team of Foster and Partners and HOK Sport is putting the final touches to the new Wembley. the biggest multi-purpose stadium of its kind in the world. Building costs stand at £352 million, total costs at £750 million, for a stadium with 90,000 seats and a sliding roof that lets in sunlight to make the grass grow more effectively, but which during matches and other events leaves only the area of play open to the elements.

'Sport is all about the feats you can’t imagine doing with your own body,' says Rod Sheard, the senior principal of HOK Sport, the world's largest sports architecture practice; as he shows me around the new Wembley stadium. ‘The sheer beauty of it is breathtaking.' It is indeed extraordinary to walk around the site and see Lord Foster's vision taking shape — the only architectural analogy, a giant cathedral. The new Wembley promises to be a worthy and spectacular successor to the old 'twin towers' stadium, which hosted a glorious range of sporting and music events, beginning with its first FA Cup Final in 1923, and including the 1948 Olympic Games, the 1966 World Cup Final, and Live Aid in 1985. But it is not London’s only major stadium project; HOK Sport's almost-complete Emirates Stadium at Ashburton Grove, Highbury, will be home to Arsenal Football Club from August, and Zaha Hadid's Aquatics Centre in Stratford, with its dramatic wave-shaped roof, will house the swimming and diving events at the 2012 Olympics.

“From the pitch, to see 90,000 seats all wrapped around what will be a ceremonial patch of grass — I feel this sense of awe”

But Wembley always was and will be something special. 'It is the church of football,' Pele, the Brazilian football legend, said of the old stadium. 'It is the capital of football and the heart of football.' Yet it left a lot to be desired in the modern era, where a broader audience demands extra services. It was run down, with only 361 lavatories and no facilities to speak of. No fewer than 16,000 seats had a restricted view. Twenty years ago, football was the domain of white males from a lower social class, but there has been a dramatic change in recent years that has seen its appeal broaden to include women, children and a more middle-class demographic (when the 12,000-seat North Stand at Arsenal's Highbury stadium was built in 1993, the number of female fans rose to 35 per cent).

Stadium architecture has responded by becoming grander and more comfortable. The new Wembley will have 2,618 lavatories and three huge concourses with the four biggest restaurants in London; the largest will hold 2,000 diners. ‘Stadium Australia [in Sydney, designed by HOK Sport for the 2000 Olympics] was one million square feet and everyone said, "Jesus",' Sheard says. ‘By the end Of the Olympics it had been viewed on TV or otherwise by 4.8 billion people. Wembley is two million square feet, so it's twice the size.'

The most spectacular addition to the Wembley site has been the 133m-high arch, four times the height of the old stadium’s twin towers. The arch, which lights up at night, has already become an architectural icon — like 30 St Mary Axe, London (better known as the Gherkin), or the Reichstag Dome, Berlin, both also the work of Lord Foster.

But the arch was not part of the original plans. It replaced four masts which had been central to the design unveiled by Foster and his team at the launch on July 29, 1999. 'It's a terrible thing to have to un-sell something,' Foster admits now. 'I went to Bayreuth for the weekend after the launch and began to worry. It was the typical stadium response, in the sense that masts and cables had become part of a tradition. You could see it at the Millennium Dome, you could see it in Australia. In a way, it had become synonymous, it had become anonymous'

In the media age, anonymity is death. Brand identity has become one of the essential ingredients of the modern stadium, and the brand - whether it's at Stamford Bridge, Ashburton Grove or Wembley — must deliver a fusion of sport with other leisure activities, such as shopping, eating. and entertainment. We are in an era of experience architecture where prestige museums and flagship stores are being eclipsed by vast colosseums for sporting heroes. One of the reasons for this is that in a world where everything is becoming the same, sport still delivers the unexpected, the unpredictable. Sporting arenas must do likewise.

Foster went on a bike ride during that fateful Bayreuth weekend and called his engineer, Alistair Lenczner. in London. 'Alistair, I'm worried about the masts,' Foster said. Tell me if I'm being stupid, but there might be a compelling rationale for an arch, and that the roof be suspended from it.' By the following Monday, they had established the basis for a transition to the new design.

Ever the skilful diplomat, Foster managed to sell the revision to his client — Ken Bates, then chairman of the Wembley National Stadium Ltd - over drinks at the house. less than a month after the launch of the four-masted design. There were some cost savings because less steel would be used, but the deciding factor was that the arch would become a striking emblem. 'There is no confusion with other stadiums. It is unique,' Foster says.

Unique, but not without its problems.The opening of this historic stadium will be worldwide news. but the Australian construction company Multiplex is only 70 per cent certain that it will meet its revised completion date of March 31 (it was originally due to be completed by the end of January). The project has been beset by serious challenges from the start, including a change of contractors and bad weather, as well as alterations to the design. At the time of writing, the FA Cup Final on May 13 is in jeopardy and may have to be relocated to Cardiff's Millennium Stadium. A decision by the FA is imminent.

“Frei Otto was designing curvy experimental structures decades before computers helped the likes of Gehry and Hadid”

Yet despite the problems the Wembley job would have Iren every architect's fantasy. Herzog admits, 'It would have been a dream to have done Wembley, I am such a big fan of English soccer.' Together with his business partner, Philippe de Meuron, Herzog has become some- thing of an expert on stadium design. 'Since (the German architect] Frei Otto's design for the 1972 Munich Olympics, stadiums have not really been on the drawing-boards of architects,' he says 'They have been left to developers and engineers.'

Herzog's firm is responsible for three stadiums at the heart of the world’s next three major sporting events. At this summer's football World Cup finals, the opening match will be played in the duo’s new Allianz Arena in Munich; at the 2008 European Championships, several key matches will be played at their St Jakob-Park stadium in Basel; and for the 2008 Olympics their stunning Beijing National Stadium, in the shape of a bird’s nest ('Perhaps our best piece of architecture'), is being built at a furious pace.

The latter is an extraordinary 90,000-seat ovoid structure with a steel zig-zag ring going up around it; 25,000 workers are on site round the clock. When I visited Beijing last November, engineers were testing the first of the bird cage's steel panels, through which one has majestic views of the playing area. The building. festooned with bright-red flags. was reminiscent of the Colosseum — and that is exactly what the architects had in mind.

“Herzog calls stadiums social vessels. ‘When it is filled, you only see people, you don’t see any other architectural feature’”

'Olympic stadiums are different to stadiums,' Herzog says. 'It is crucial to make a distinction between the two. In an Olympic stadium, you don't have two teams fighting each other; you have individuals. The idea is that people come together under the sky. almost like in ancient Greece It's a more peaceful. arena-type atmosphere.'

So what are the criteria for building successful modern stadiums? There are the obvious points, such as a good seating bowl, a quality of view, the right acoustics, good sightlines, safety and flexibility of use — if the venue is multi-purpose, like Wembley (which has a temporary athletics track).

Lighting is crucial — and this is an area where television has a profound influence on stadium design, Before the Munich Olympics, it was discovered that when a 400m athlete ran out of the sun into shadow, television sensors were too slow to adjust. The stadium roof was therefore made transparent to evenly distribute the maximum amount of daylight. There is also the issue of landscaping and the position of the site itself, so that visitors can enjoy the approach to the stadium, almost as if they were going on a pilgrimage.

Herzog calls stadiums social vessels. where human beings shape the structure: 'When it's filled, you only see people. you don't see any other architectural feature.' He outlines three crucial features for football stadiums: solidity. so as to capture atmosphere; the relationship between the pitch and the public, so that one is as close as possible to the action; and the use of colour.

All three elements are visible at Herzog and de Meuron's new Allianz Arena, home to two football teams, Bayern Munich and 1860 Munich. The stadium — dubbed 'the rubber dinghy' by locals — looks like an elegant spaceship; at night, it lights up in red and white or blue and white — the colours of the two teams. According to Herzog, a football stadium has to contain emotions ‘like a witch's cauldron’.

The roof takes your breath away. It is made of 2,874 inflatable ETFE-foil cushions in the shape of honeycombs, each approximately 35 square metres. ETFE stands for ethylene tetrafluoroethylene, a material that in sheet form weighs less than one per cent of the equivalent pane of glass

The centrepiece of any stadium, both literally and metaphorically, is the pitch, where science is applied to grass growing. It is an established fact that England's grass is greener due to soil and weather, and German officials even came over here to study its secrets. But Wembley won't reveal where it grows the grass that will be used for the pitch. Both Allianz Arena and Wembley share the most incredible views of the playing surface, even from the highest the latter has 30 per cent more spectator space than the old stadium.

'From the middle of the pitch, to see 90,000 seats all wrapped around what is going to be a ceremonial patch of grass, I feel this extraordinary sense of awe,' Foster says. ‘It evokes something that is in the collective genes. You cannot help but make the association with colosseums, Roman arenas, performances, spectacles, rituals.’

An Olympic stadium, perhaps because of its more lofty purpose, has to be able to disperse emotions, be more open and reflect the diverse nature of the sports that take place within. There is no one who knows more about Olympic stadiums and their history than Frei Otto, the architect of the legendary 1972 Munich Olympic stadium. who is now 80 years old.

“Olympic stadiums are different to soccer stadiums. In an Olympic stadium you don’t have two teams fighting each other”

I am given a tour of the site by a former pupil of Otto's, Eberhard Möller, an architect and engineer from the Technical University Munich. On our train to the Olympic park. Möller and I make a list of the 10 best stadiums in the world. In chronological order, they are: 1) the Colosseum, Rome, built under Vespasian; 2) the San Siro, Milan, 1925; 3) Stadio Communale, Florence, by Pier Luigi Nervi, 1932-34; 4) Santiago Bernabéu, Madrid, 1947; 5) Maracanä, Rio de Janeiro, 1950; 6) Astrodome, Houston, 1961-1965; 7) Olympic stadium, Munich, by Behnisch & Partner and roof structure by Frei Otto, Leonhardt and Andrä, 1968-72; 8) Toronto Sky Dome, by Toronto RAN Consortium, Rod Robbie, Mike Allen & Bill Neish, 1986-1989; 9) Allianz Arena, Munich, by Herzog and de Meuron 10) Wembley, London, by Foster & Partners and HOK Sport, 2003-2006.

The best way to see the old Munich stadium is from the nearby Olympic Tower, which gives a perfect view of the undulating tent-like roof structure. It is a triumph of the integration of building and landscape — the stadium is set in a beautiful park. Its creator lives in Warmbronn, a suburb of Stuttgart. From the street, you can't miss Otto's atelier, which indicates that here lives someone radical. It is a slice of glass positioned, with minimum disruption, into the hillside.

Otto, a handsome man with a shock of white hair. was awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects' highest honour, the Royal Gold Medal, in 2004 for services to architecture. Both architect and engineer, he was designing curvy experimental structures decades before computers helped the likes of Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid with their work. Otto's creations look as though they come from nature; giant steel butterflies that seem to fly and soar in the imagination.

He is a walking, talking history of architecture of the second half of the 20th century; in 1950 he visited America armed with an introductory letter from Walter Gropius. the founder of the Bauhaus, and sought advice from Frank Lloyd Wright, Eero Saarinen, Mies van der Rohe and Charles Eames. 'Everyone was so friendly,' he says 'It all happened by recommendation. I was the first young German architect who went to the US, and I was asked about Germany by everybody. '

Foster acknowledges Otto's influence, ‘in the quest to do more with less, and a belief in the elegance, the lightness, the performance of structures.’ As honorary professor of Stuttgart’s Institute for Lightweight Structures, Otto built extensively in Saudi Arabia, where his tent structures suited the climate. He even designed convertible umbrellas to protect the stage during Pink Floyd's 1977 US tour. The band liked them so much that they became an integral part of their stage show.

Otto likens stadiums to places of worship; indeed, he once built a tent for 12,000 people in front of the Reichstag for the American evangelist Billy Graham. He also converted the Olympic Stadium in Berlin into a church for one week in 1960, to host the Evangelist Church Day. 'Where is the difference between church buildings and stadiums?' he asks. ‘Churches are places of community. Where does the sacred begin and end in a space? Olympic stadiums have some of this. One is a small element in a vast sea of human beings who have gathered to experience something.'

Otto’s advice for those planning the London Olympics is simple: work out what the purpose of the stadiums be after the Games are over something that Herzog and Foster also mention in order to avoid becoming mired in debt, as happened with Montreal and Athens.

And Otto’s favourite building to design? The family house. An accomplished pilot, he was in the air while cities burned during the Second World War, and the experience left an indelible mark on him. Stadiums are vehicles for urban regeneration, he says That is the most valuable aspect of their existence, other than the thrill of the spectacle.

At Wembley, the surrounding area will benefit from thousands of new jobs and homes with improved facilities The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, backed the 2012 Olympics not least because the Games would help kick-start growth in the east of the capital. But for architects, the Olympic experience offers something else: the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to push the boat out. 'The Olympics are about stretching the boundaries of physical performance and endurance,' Foster says, 'so the buildings which host these events, and which become the symbols of these events, should in their own way be Olympian.'