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Happy 50th Birthday Camp Nou |
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El "nou" Camp Nou!
Happy Birthday Camp Nou! To mark the 50 year anniversary of the FC Barcelona football ground, Camp Nou (which means “New Field” in Catalan), the FC Barcelona football club has unveiled the plans for a Nou Camp Nou – a “new New Field” – a complete restructuring of the present FC Barcelona football stadium which was built in 1957 and is 50 years old.
The award-winning British architect Norman Foster has been chosen to transform this iconic stadium into a world class symbol of Barcelona and Catalonia and “an international architectural reference point for the 21st century,” which is always a good thing to be.
The new designs certainly look very impressive and have been enthusiastically received by fans! Norman Foster was an excellent choice for this job. Not only is he probably the world's most successful living architect with amazing structures like the Millau Viaduct in France and the Beijing Airport in China amongst his impressive list of achievments, but he knows Barcelona well, having designed the Collserola Tower back in 1992 for the Olympic Games, and he knows football stadiums well, having more recently designed the new Wembley Stadium in London.
With this new structure Norman Foster pays homage to Anton Gaudi, the famous Catalan architect, by taking inspiration in the design of the mosaic for the new covering for the future stadium. It will be a Gaudi-esque mosaic of multi-coloured tiles in FC Barcelona blue and scarlet colours alongside the orange and yellow colours of Catalonia's flag.
Hopefully Norman will not taken inspiration from Gaudi’s planning methods as he new stadium is expected to be finished in late 2008 and not around 2128 had the old master himself been in charge.
The new Camp Nou will have no “aesthetic reference” in common with Wembley stadium, which we are sure will relieve and confuse Barca fans equally, as it did us. But we are confident that the two stadiums will at least have the green and grassy bits and at least four goal posts in common.
The new Camp Nou will have extra seats bringing the total seating capacity up from 98.800 to almost 109.000 cheering fans on a full night. The estimated cost of all this is expected to be around €250 million. Football games will continue during the construction of the new pearl of Barcelona.
Information about the present Camp Nou Stadium in Les Corts Barcelona
Official Name: Nou Estadi del Futbol Club Barcelona
Inauguration: 24 September 1956
Renovations: 1980 & 1994
Capacity: 98,800 seats
FCB Club Inauguration: 29 November 1899
FCB Club colours: Blue & Red
 Click here to visit FC Barcelona for more information
Click here to visit Norman Foster’s website.
Click here for directions to Camp Nou
Click here for directions to Torre de Collserola
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