Real Madrid's grandiose 'Resort Island' unveiled to...widespread derision
As new theme park launches go, it has to be among the worst media reactions on record.
Bloggers and columnists have reacted with derision, rarely veiled, at last week's announcement of the $1 billion football themed resort by Real Madrid in the United Arab Emirates, already home to Ferrari World.
The enormous tourism complex is set to open in Ras al-Khaimah in 2015 and will be built on an artificial island, home to a Real Madrid museum, an amusement park, numerous sports facilities, a marina and yacht club, 48 residential buildings, several hotels and the world's first stadium open to the sea.
The world's first 'football hologram' show will also headline the attraction, which will run to around 430,000 square meters.
When the complex opens in January 2015, over one million fans annually are expected to pour in, with the club calculating that two billion potential visitors live within a four-hour flight.
The high profile announcement drew plenty of attention last week, but as the concept settles in, it hasn't left everyone smiling.
The Score's Footy Blog described the project as "slightly more insane than first feared/hoped" while Time Magazine chose "crass commercialization."
Design and architecture blog Architizer channeled Manfredo Tafuri's assertion of "sublime uselessness" in contemporary architecture, describing the ambitious plans as "frippery."
In the UK, the Independent was even more scathing, writing "In a sport in which we thought the levels of rampant commercialism no longer had the power to shock, Madrid have succeeded in taking it to a whole new level."
The UAE is a country where not every plan comes to fruition, so it will be a while before it's clear whether guests will actually be able to visit Real Madrid's latest wheeze -- although even if they can, it seems not everybody will want to.
