Plans to build a gigantic glowing orb, as wide as the London Eye and almost as tall as Big Ben, in Stratford, east London, has divided critics and residents in the city.
New York entertainment giant the Madison Square Garden (MSG) Company is applying for planning permission for a 295ft-high music venue, promising “the next generation of immersive experiences” with world-class screen resolution and sound for its 21,500 concert-goers.
“As planning applications go, it’s certainly got balls,” says The Guardian’s Oliver Wainwright. “Or, to be precise, one massive ball.”
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
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”, explains Wainwright. Using 36 million lights, it is “set to glow 24 hours a day, covered with animated adverts for half the time, flickering right outside people’s bedroom windows”.
The Madison Square Garden Sphere project has gone from “looking like an April Fools’ Day prank to now seeming quite likely to happen”, adds Wainwright.
“We’ve just got over the Marble Arch Mound,” says Time Out, referring to another of the capital’s contentious constructions. “Is it now time for the Stratford Sphere?”
This “bad boy” would be a permanent fixture on the London skyline, “next to that strange Olympic Park observation tower that looks like a toddler-drawn rollercoaster”, says the magazine.
The decision on whether it gets planning permission from the London Legacy Development Corporation is “still pending”, but the “concept has been panned by neighbours”, who are worried about the additional footfall and the advertising on the exterior of the building, “in a style not unlike the futuristic Blade Runner films”, says the Daily Mail.
One local told the newspaper “there must be another way to bring in economics into Stratford and definitely not this 90m high joke”, while another remarked that “extreme light pollution and noise, particularly at night, will cause severe harm to residents’ health and wellbeing”.
The Mail notes that MSG has said the lighting can be dimmed if needed and that its own polling found as many as 85% of people supported the sphere. It will also “support thousands of good jobs and bring £2.5 billion to the London economy in its first 20 years of operation”, the company has said.
But the Stop MSG Sphere campaign group, made up of people living in the area, says residents are “terrified” by the proposal that “will severely blight the area, cause noise and light pollution, unmanageable overcrowding and transport chaos”.
One of the group’s members, Lindsay Mace, says: “We don’t think Stratford residents should be guinea pigs for something this huge.”
With concerns that the 24-hour lights will shine into neighbouring homes, another local said: “Our friends have joked that it will at least reduce our electricity bills. We’ll never have to switch the lights on, day or night.”
Bryan Johnston, head of property litigation at the law firm Dentons, predicts a legal bun fight. “Excessive displays of Christmas lights have appeared before the courts in the past in neighbours’ disputes,” he said. “This will be one almighty Christmas display, 365 days a year.”
Writing in The Guardian, Labour MP for West Ham, Lyn Brown, says the site was originally public land that was sold to developers with the idea of creating new workspaces and homes, “a fitting vision for the positive legacy of the Games”.
Instead, she continues, “what we now face is a massive live entertainment venue”, covered with “garish” LEDs, programmed to display videos and adverts. This “monstrous glowing orb makes a mockery of east London’s Olympic legacy”, Brown concludes.
There has also been much bemusement on Twitter, where journalist Sirin Kale says the idea is “insane”, while fellow scribe Nadine Batchelor-Hunt asks of the plan: “For why?”
However, local man Jamie Ratcliff insists there is nothing to worry about. “Simply put no one will die from being close to some bright lights,” he tweets.
If the whole plan sounds a little “Las Vegas”, then that checks out: MSG is also building a Sphere in Sin City that’s set to open in 2023.
-
The ‘ravenous’ demand for Cornish mineralsUnder the Radar Growing need for critical minerals to power tech has intensified ‘appetite’ for lithium, which could be a ‘huge boon’ for local economy
-
Why are election experts taking Trump’s midterm threats seriously?IN THE SPOTLIGHT As the president muses about polling place deployments and a centralized electoral system aimed at one-party control, lawmakers are taking this administration at its word
-
‘Restaurateurs have become millionaires’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Travel for all: 6 of the world’s most accessible destinationsThe Week Recommends Experience all of Berlin, Singapore and Sydney
-
Arcadia: Tom Stoppard’s ‘masterpiece’ makes a ‘triumphant’ returnThe Week Recommends Carrie Cracknell’s revival at the Old Vic ‘grips like a thriller’
-
American Psycho: a ‘hypnotic’ adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis classicThe Week Recommends Rupert Goold’s musical has ‘demonic razzle dazzle’ in spades
-
Can London’s pie and mash shops make a comeback?Under the Radar Traditional East End eateries are on the ‘brink of extinction’ – but a younger generation is giving the Cockney cuisine an unexpected boost
-
Breaking news: the rise of ‘smash hit’ rage roomsUnder the Radar Paying to vent your anger on furniture is all the rage but experts are sceptical
-
Why is London’s property market slumping?Today's Big Question Some sellers have reported losses of hundreds of thousands of pounds
-
Jane Austen lives on at these timeless hotelsThe Week Recommends Here’s where to celebrate the writing legend’s 250th birthday
-
David Hockney at Annely Juda: an ‘eye-popping’ exhibitionThe Week Recommends ‘Some Very, Very, Very New Paintings Not Yet Shown in Paris’ testifies to the artist’s ‘extraordinary vitality’ and ‘childlike curiosity’
