London has missed opportunities to relocate football stadia such as Wembley and the Emirates away from their current congested city locations.  The relocation of West Ham to the more spacious environment of Olympic Park is an opportunity which other cities have already grasped, such as Munich with the Allianz Arena opened in May 2005, adjacent both to the new Fröttmaning U-Bahn station on the Munich U-Bahn and to the main highway connecting the city of Munich and the airport.

The stadium, the third largest in Germany with a seating capacity of 75,024, was designed by Herzog & de Meuron, perhaps better known as architects of Tate Modern Bankside and its new extension.  It is constructed with a cloud-like exterior of EFTE plastic panels, commonly used for atria roof structures, and was the first stadium in the world with a colour-changing exterior, lit in red when the host team is Bayern Munich, in blue when it is 1860 Munich, and in white when the German national team is hosting the match. The roof of the stadium has retractable blinds on rollers to provide protection from the sun.

The stadium also includes the Bayern Munich museum and megastore, relatively busy even on a cold winter’s weekday.

The stadium is supported by Europe’s largest parking structure, comprising four-story parking garages providing 9,800 parking places with an additional 1,200 places built into the first two tiers of the arena, 350 places for buses and 130 more spaces for disabled drivers.

The well-designed Fröttmaning U-Bahn station was opened on 30 June 1994 and is an exemplar of how such a station should be designed, with its tented uncluttered uplit structure, also directly connected to the parking structures, enabling “park and ride” for Munich commuters during the working week.

(4 photographs copyright Allianz Arena)