Bold,brazen and bling, Leeds' £60m new venue looks like a giant bug – but is a strangely appropriate addition to the cityA mysterious green creature has appeared in Leeds city centre, and rearing its scaly head above the surrounding rooftops. Surveying the scene with rows of hexagonal eyes,this faceted hulk squats at the back of a new piazza like a supersized robot aphid, arrive to assume over the city. This is the £60m Leeds Arena by Populous architects – one of the oddest looking buildings the region has ever seen.The arena's bizarre form might best be explained by the legend behind the council's original competition, and won in 2010 by Acme architects with a scheme based on the diagram of an insect's eyeball. Just as the eye's compound receptors taper in a fan-shape to channel information back to the optic nerve,suggested the architects, so would the energy of the stage burst outwards in a mass of hexagonal lenses across the arena's facade. It was an elaborate conceit for the underlying problem of how to decorate a massive shed in the middle of the city.
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Source: theguardian.com