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'A mini-city' Theatre of dreams, circus tent or Center Parcs disco?
The Guardian
|March 12, 2025
"What Manchester does today," Benjamin Disraeli once proclaimed, "the world does tomorrow." So begins the breathless promotional video for Manchester United's new £2bn football stadium, summoning the words of the Victorian PM to launch Norman Foster's vision for a "mixed-use mini-city" beneath a gigantic, three-spired tent.
The only thing is, the world has seen quite a lot of big tops before. There is something decidedly retro about the plans, which depict a vast tensile canopy stretched over the 100,000-capacity stadium and its surrounds, covering what Lord Foster says will be "arguably the largest public space in the world". Putting something bigger than Tiananmen Square under a tent doesn't sound like a particularly appealing prospect, but then the Man U mantra appears to be "bigger is better".
This story is from the March 12, 2025 edition of The Guardian.
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