Ready to welcome the world
Can you tell us about the inspiration behind the stadium ’ s design ?
The stadium has a story to tell . The brief was to be inspired by the headgear – that ’ s it . There wasn ’ t much literature written about the gahfiya . I spent many hours in the old souq , checking every type of gahfiya available . So , I thought , let me go literal yet very contemporary . Literal in mass and scale , but very contemporary in the skin , the material , the open .
Arab culture is at the centre of this World Cup , what are your thoughts about your culture being shared with the world ?
I think this is the beginning of us reflecting our culture globally . Imagine the impact the stadium will make to the hundreds of thousands of visitors that are going to come from all over the world to see how we managed to reflect our culture in the most contemporary , most advanced stadiums in the world .
I ’ m so proud of it and I can ’ t wait until the whistle blows for the game to start .