Japan Picks `Hamburger' Stadium Plan for 2020 Tokyo Olympics
- Original design by Zaha Hadid scrapped after costs ballooned
- Three-tier, 80,000-seat stadium to cost $1.2 billion
Artist rendering of the Tokyo Olympic Stadium
Source: Technical Proposal/Japan Sport CouncilJapan selected a new design for the main 2020 Tokyo Olympics stadium, after it abandoned in July a futurist creation by British-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid when cost projections soared to almost double original estimates.
The cabinet of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday decided on a design by a team led by architect Kengo Kuma that has been dubbed the "hamburger" on social media in Japan. The three-tier 80,000-seat stadium is estimated to cost 149 billion yen ($1.2 billion), and will be completed by November 2019. The government capped the cost at 155 billion yen after the projected cost of Hadid’s stadium soared to 252 billion yen.