Architect Zaha Hadid has pulled out of bidding for designing Tokyo’s 2020 Olympics stadium, her Japanese business partner said, only two weeks after their announcement to join the competition.
Nikken Sekkei and Hadid’s firm said in September they would take another crack at designing the stadium after an initially successful proposal was scrapped due to its eye-watering $2 billion price tag.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shocked Olympic organisers in July when he pulled the plug on the Iraqi-British architect’s winning design as soaring costs put it on course to become the world’s most expensive sports stadium.
The futuristic design had also been criticised by some architects who said it would be an eyesore.
The Japanese company said in a press release Friday, the deadline for the new competition, that they were unable to “secure a construction company.”
Hadid’s firm in London said in a statement it is “disappointing that the two years of work and investment in the existing design for a new national stadium for Japan cannot be further developed to meet the new brief through the new design competition.”
The two had worked together on the original winning design.
According to local media, renowned Japanese architects Kengo Kuma and Toyo Ito have announced to join the new bidding.
Hadid’s firm said in early September that the current design can be “redesigned to achieve a cheaper budget”.
Japan slashed the cost of the new Olympic stadium by more than 40 percent, setting a 155 billion yen ($1.28 billion) cap on construction costs, well below the 265 billion yen estimated under the now-ditched design.
The International Olympic Committee has demanded that Japan complete its new national stadium by January 2020, three months earlier than planned. Tokyo is due to host the opening ceremony on July 24 that year.