![]() Stratford High Street is now lined with its own special gauntlet of tacky towers, some rainbow-hued by night, while the Olympic Park is no stranger to architectural whimsy. You might argue that post-Olympics Stratford is the closest thing that London has to the anything-goes free-for-all of the Vegas Strip. It is the stuff of Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown’s neon-soaked dreams. It makes a fitting addition to the world capital of glowing billboards, standing as the apogee of 360-degree advertising, the ultimate building-as-sign. Brainchild of MSG boss James Dolan, a major donor to Donald Trump’s campaign, the $1.8bn blob joins a fantasy land of fake canals and artificial skies. Despite the claim that the London sphere will be “like nothing you’ve ever experienced”, MSG is currently building an almost identical project next to the Venetian resort in Vegas, set to open in 2023. If the project looks like something airlifted from Sin City, well, that’s because it is. Nobody expects a gigantic ball of light to arrive on their doorstep, no matter where they live.”Įxcept, perhaps, in Las Vegas. “But the guy just said: ‘If you don’t like noise and crowds, you shouldn’t have moved to Stratford.’ I’ve lived in east London all my life and never imagined something like this would be built here. “We suggested it wasn’t an appropriate development for a residential area,” says Sonmez. On the day they picked up their keys, they found a leaflet on the doormat advertising a public consultation for the project nearby, so they ran straight over. Sonmez and her husband moved into a shared ownership flat on the third floor of Legacy Tower in Stratford in 2018, across the railway line from where the sphere will rise next to the Westfield shopping centre. “We’ll never have to switch the lights on, day or night.” “Our friends have joked that it will at least reduce our electricity bills,” says Ceren Sonmez, who lives opposite the proposed site. It is set to glow 24 hours a day, covered with animated adverts for half the time, flickering right outside people’s bedroom windows. But its most extreme, and controversial, feature is what’s on the outside: the building’s facade is a five-acre spherical TV screen, like Times Square rolled into a ball. The sphere, they say, is designed for “the next generation of immersive experiences”, featuring the biggest and highest-resolution screen in the world, an “infrasound haptic system” of vibrating floors, and “beamforming” audio technology to channel sound to every seat. “The world’s most famous arena” in Manhattan has hosted everyone from the Rolling Stones to Muhammad Ali beneath its great circular roof but, in London, they want to go one better. This is the MSG Sphere, the latest live entertainment concept from New York’s Madison Square Garden company, purveyors of high-octane razzmatazz since 1879. A gigantic glowing orb, as wide as the London Eye and almost as tall as Big Ben, is planned to descend on Stratford, bulging on to the skyline like a great artificial sun, dazzling the East End with the power of 36m LEDs. ![]() A s planning applications go, it’s certainly got balls. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |