Man Utd’s new stadium will be ‘global destination’, says architect Lord Foster

Manchester United’s bold design for a new 100,000-seater super stadium would only take five years to build and be the heart of “one of the most exciting projects in the world”, according to architect Lord Norman Foster.

The Premier League club had been looking at either redeveloping the nation’s largest club stadium or building a new one on adjacent club-owned land.

United have now confirmed they will pursuing the new £2billion ground as part of a wider regeneration project, with details and concept images released on Tuesday of what has been called ‘New Trafford Stadium’ by the architects.

Foster + Partners’ design features three striking masts – with two rising 150 metres and the other reaching 200 metres – and the stadium would be built out of 160 pre-fabricated sections.

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Lord Foster, the founder and executive chairman of the architecture firm, said: “This has to be one of the most exciting projects in the world today.

“The three masts, the trident, visible from 40 kilometres, 200 metres high, so this becomes a global destination.

“Normally a stadium would take 10 years to build. We half that time to five years. How do we do that? By pre-fabrication, by using the network of Manchester Ship Canal, bringing it back to a new life.

“Shipping in components, 160 of them, Meccano-like and then we rebuild the Old Trafford station and that becomes the pivot, the processional way to the stadium – welcoming and at the heart of a new sports-led neighbourhood.

“It’s walkable, it’s well served by public transport, it’s endowed by nature, it learns from the past, it creates streets. It’s a mixed-use, mini city.”

United would continue to play at Old Trafford until the new