London-based architect Zaha Hadid has given up on submitting a new stadium design for the Tokyo Olympics following the government's decision to scrap her original plan, a spokesman for her firm said Friday.
"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 spokesman for Zaha Hadid Architects said.
The Iraqi-British architect's firm had attempted to submit a new plan in collaboration with Tokyo-based Nikken Sekkei Ltd. in the second competition for replacing the National Stadium for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
On Thursday, however, Zaha Hadid Architects criticized the requirements for entering the new competition as "restrictive."
"This competition requires capabilities in planning and design, construction and construction supervision, and requires design firms to form a consortium of firms covering all these capabilities," Nikken Sekkei said in a statement Friday.
"Nikken Sekkei and Zaha Hadid Architects have not been able to secure a construction company in their consortium and therefore announce that they are unable to enter the competition," it said.
After the government dropped the firm's original plan in July amid the public outcry over its ballooning costs, it invited submissions early this month for the new competition, which is scheduled to end in late December.
