Qatar’s impending World Cup, which kicks off next Sunday, does not only require the creation of vast sporting infrastructure almost from scratch. It also comes with a striking fetish – in the case of six of its eight stadia claiming to look like things that they are not: a “diamond in the desert”; a traditional woven cap; the sails (or possibly the hulls) of a pearl fishing dhow; a nomads’ tent; an ancient ceramic bowl that is also a candlelit lantern; a sand dune that is also a shield. There’s something a bit gift shop, a bit tourist tat, about this shifting of shapes and scales – an Eiffel Tower cigarette lighter, anyone? A koala made of seashells? But the designers and marketing wizards behind this construction project, variously reported in a range from £5.7bn to £8.7bn, seem to think that metaphorical monikers are somehow essential to their grand project.
The stadium designs do at least take to some sort of parodic conclusion the logic of “iconic” architecture over the past quarter-century, which is to get big names to design something striking, marketable and (since the invention of the platform) Instagram-friendly. The “Birds Nest” stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics had all the essential ingredients. The naming of London skyscrapers after edibles and domestic objects is another precedent.
