Fresh Insider Info on Inter’s Much-Hyped Futuristic Stadium
March 10, 2013
A panoramic revolving and sliding natural glass roof that inaugurates a weather-sensing system, heating and ventilation technologies for attendees and on-the-pitch systems for players, piezoelectric and photovoltaic solar panels, 3D 8K-resolution scoreboards for replays, 802.11ac free WiFi access throughout the stadium, FIFA Goal-Line Technology, five different tier seats, spaces for children, an Inter heritage museum, a Nerazzurri prestige museum, the second Solo Inter official store (the first being in the city), exclusive zones for leisure and comfort, luxury suite and sky boxes with iPads and concierge hospitality, art facilities, and an exclusive turf… the ‘Spaceship’ is set to become the world’s most advanced venue upon commemoration.
These are the words that have become the talk of the town. Gone are the flying buttresses and some 80,000 seats of the yesteryears at the Meazza, but in its place, a structure that hails and breathes the legacy of Inter. It has been rumored that the stadium will take up a double-persona: becoming a leading technological icon and flagship for the future on one end, and in the other… paying tribute to history by resembling and taking inspiration from multiple areas of the San Siro.

As friends gather around for lunch, the talk over steak & balsamic vinegar is filled with a harmonious sense of joy from last evening’s 105th birthday party over at the Solo Inter store in the city center (Via Berchet 1, Milan). “Inter Ti Amo” with the 105 in white and the much-expected black and blue stripes. Smiles. Laughter. Filled with much enthusiasm, with C’è solo l’Inter playing in the background, we returned from our memories of yesterday to the lunch table today with our mind set on the Bologna match. We were eager to see how many circles would Diamanti try to wrap around Carrizo and of course… the subject of everyone’s attention and aggregation… the number of hat-tricks that Rocchi would finally score tonight.
In addition to the Bologna match to view at night, we had just received word from multiple gurus and analysts about the new and heavily-praised stadium, what was to become the new symbol of our beloved club… a way to get out of the debts of FFP and the Milanese commissions from il Meazza and onwards to profitability.
The usual suspects are all there: restaurants, shopping centers, museums, stands, lounges, and yada-yada. Then all of a sudden, you get the out-of-the-ordinary bits; just when you think that this will be another regular boring stadium to bring in the bread-and-butter, the bizarre rumors pop out… and you see that the management have gone all the way with this one. And we mean… all the way. All-new, architecturally redesigned dressing rooms for players (because the current ones seriously do look like prison dungeon cells where merciless gladiators were trapped with lions, if you’ve ever seen them on TV before the start of the match). The stadium is said to feature all sorts of amnesties that perhaps could make it more luxurious and dream-worthy than a king’s palace. Here’s the one phrase that threw us off, as translated from Chinese reports that have **** in Mabetex: “immensely open and atmospheric stadium, but also intimate and huggingly space-efficient” where we begin to see that the stadium wants to turn out bipolar. That’s not the end of it, as the **** continue: “one that tops in reduced consumption, a greener environmental carbon impact with renewable energy ****, recharging the generators from alternative solutions… leaving minuscule chemical emission and producing efficiency against pollution.”
By this time, we cannot hold our excitement from within and we burst out of shock… pointing our fingers at the reporter on TV like we’re first-grade hooligans. We were surprised at how meticulous the Inter Stadium project was. The management (with former Juventus Director Marco Fassone) had looked at tons of other plans even to the point of looking at baseball and cricket stadiums for reference, and thinking about the project for eight consecutive years on where the location should turn out to be. Out of 43 potentially identified areas in Milan. This, then, is an extremely well thought-out procedure.
The idea was that the seats would be reduced to 67,000 for the new stadium, from San Siro’s 80,000 (in order to serve the fire hazard better… in case of emergency, there wouldn’t be a cramming or bottleneck for everyone to escape the stadium quick enough). However, to make tickets competitive and ensure that they would earn more sales, the new proposal is some 46,000 seats… further similar to Juventus Stadium. This way, there will be a shortage of tickets and the full stands could mean more demand from the fans. Speaking of Juventus Stadium, here’s a gorgeous view from above:

The president of Swedish club Aik Solna, Johan Strömberg, has decided to let some of the details out. The Friends Arena in Stockholm, which is the multi-functional new ground home venue of Aik Solna, was just recently built in a working-class area and transformed the location to a more chic section of the city. The Aik Solna club wanted to build this stadium in an industrial zone of the city of Stockholm to keep costs down (similar to what Inter are doing with the proposal of San Donato in Milano, a railroad and tracking area, for Inter’s new stadium) where the atmosphere of the location wouldn’t be ‘good enough’ and too dangerous with the marginally higher crime rates. However, upon building the stadium, Aik Solna recommissioned many of the areas around the stadium with the city with hotels, restaurants, shopping centers, amphitheaters… and now, the location has changed from a drastically poor zone to an upper-class area. The Aik Solna president talks today about these technological details of the Inter stadium, also mentioning that it could be built in a lower-class part of the city and by changing the atmosphere of the surrounding area with new places, creating a huge shift in city spectrum for the stadium.
Strömberg says, “the new Inter Stadium? It will be one of the most beautiful buildings in the world. Certainly the most beautiful stadium in Europe. It has been on Moratti’s plans for a long time. Most people think and say that the San Siro is legendary. If such is true, then the new Inter Stadium will be ‘godly.’ Inter plan to take the best hotels and art facilities around Europe in the plans of the stadium. Meeting with Inter? In January, we were invited to Milan to discuss how we established the Friends Arena so as to consult and help them in their project. We also watched a game (Inter vs. Pescara). They are still at the proposal stages of the project. We have invited them to see our stadium. Inspiration? The company has asked information from stadiums around Europe. One in particular, Allianz Arena in Germany and a couple in Holland. One of the quintessential characteristics of the Friends Arena that interests Inter heavily is our natural glass roof that allows us to play in all weather conditions. If it snows in the winter, we close it. If the outside temperature is too cold, we can use a heating system on-the-pitch to keep the players rejuvenated. If it is 16 degrees and warm, it’ll remain open. We also have an ideal synthetic turf.”