September 24 – AC Milan and FC Internazionale Milano have appointed architectural firms Foster + Partners and MANICA, led respectively by Lord Norman Foster and David Manica, to design the new Milan Stadium. But only if the Milan City Council agrees to sell the Great Urban Function San Siro site.
The new venue, is part of an urban regeneration project covering approximately 281,000 square meters and focused on innovation and sustainability. The stadium will have a capacity of 71,500 seats and feature two large tiers with an incline designed to ensure optimal visibility from every section.
The club’s reaffirmed their strong commitment “to delivering a stadium that meets the highest standards of innovation, comfort, and sustainability, and will also stand out as an architectural landmark.”
The San Siro has long occupied a special place in European football. Mention the name San Siro to any die-hard football fan, and images of Europe’s greatest players and nights come flooding from the memory bank because this has always been a venue that is more than steel and poured concrete, but a true temple.
It’s a cathedral where Franco Baresi raised multiple Scudetto’s, where the original Ronaldo left defenders wondering how the Brazilian had slipped through them and where Milan and Inter shaped European football for decades.
But time catches up with even the grandest of stages. The ground that hosted the 1990 World Cup is creaking, the facilities dated, and for two clubs desperate to match the financial might with the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona, and to do that they need a modern revenue-generating stadium.
Foster + Partners has designed iconic projects such as Apple Park in Cupertino, the airports in Hong Kong and Beijing, the Millennium Bridge in London, as well as two flagship Apple stores in Rome and Milan. It was responsible for the masterplan for the Wembley Stadium precinct. The practice has also worked on several large scale masterplans in Milan including Milano Sesto.
MANICA, established by David Manica in 2007, has designed internationally acclaimed infrastructures such as Allegiant Stadium and Chase Center, home to the Las Vegas Raiders and Golden State Warriors. MANICA is also responsible for the design of the upcoming transformative stadium project that will host the Chicago Bears and the Miami Freedom Park, the future home of Inter Miami CF. Manica and Foster have previously worked together on the new Wembley Stadium in London and the Lusail Stadium winning bid for the World Cup 2024 in Qatar.
Inter and Milan have both tasted the summit of Europe, but in recent years they’ve been looking up at Spanish and English giants with fatter wallets and shinier homes. A new stadium doesn’t guarantee trophies, but it does give the Milanese clubs the tools to fight on equal terms.
The San Siro will always live in the memory, its noise, its vast shadow, its history. But football is moving on, and so must Milan. The next great nights in this city could soon come in a stadium built not just to honour the past, but to create the future.
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