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Posted by Reeves Wiedeman
Recently, I was in the offices of Populous, the sports-architecture firm, looking through several boxes of papers documenting the design process of the company’s newest stadium, Marlins Park. “Mr. Loria told us to make a piece of art,” Earl Santee, the lead designer on the stadium, told me, referring to the Marlins owner and art collector Jeffrey Loria. In addition to feasibility studies, there were hand-drawn renderings of a bobblehead museum and a nine-item list of “primary design objectives,” from April 2008. The top goal was creating “a ballpark that is quintessentially Miami,” which meant, according to a list of adjectives that the architects drew up:
Palms
Destination
Diverse
Recreation
Beach
They made a similar list for Little Havana, the stadium’s immediate neighborhood:
Cuba
Pastels
Canopies
Organic
Everything is Unique
All this was prepared for a presentation meant for Loria and the Marlins—and the architects knew what their client was hoping to hear. “The site is a gallery space with the ballpark representing gallery walls,” one page said, adding that the stadium would be a space for “the performance art displayed on the field of play.” The overriding goal: “Pure Color. Pure Art. Pure Baseball.”
The Marlins unveiled their new stadium on Wednesday night—on “ESPN1,” as Ben McGrath noted (subscribers can also read Ben’s full account of the Marlins rebrand)—to mostly fawning architectural reviews. Even those who don’t like green, or fish, or that thing in center field, had at least one point of praise: well, it’s different! There were no bricks, no green iron trusses. This was gleaming white and shining glass, an homage to Richard Meier, not Honus Wagner.
All this in a stadium designed by Populous, the firm responsible for eighteen of the last twenty-three M.L.B. parks—including both Yankee Stadium and Citi Field—most of which have embraced the past as much as the future.The retro trend in stadium design, led off by the Populous-designed Oriole Park at Camden Yards, was well received until it became even more derivative than it already was. It’s not quite right to credit or blame Populous for the trend—as the firm’s architects insist, they work in the service of their clients, and for the past twenty years, their clients mostly wanted retro ballparks—but they certainly enabled it.
Of most interest among the Marlins Park documents were several pages that included four different designs presented to the Marlins back in 2008. Design Concept A was close to the final plan—it had more glass, and a large red stripe along the side (“water merging with land”)—but the others were even more radical departures from current stadium form. Concept B was square, with the sharp-edged corners of large white balconies forming the exterior. The inspiration was a cruise liner. From the sky, Concept C, “a theater for baseball,” looked like an artist’s palette, with a circular roof sliding off and on like a runny splotch of paint. Design Concept D was square, too, but with curved corners and a “dramatic cloak” of blue and tan around the side. It’s clear that Concept A was the architect’s favorite—and, ultimately, the team’s—but it’s worth noting that there were more radical designs under consideration.
So, with Marlins Park open, where will these radical designs go next? Nowhere, perhaps. Populous has already designed a stadium for Tampa Bay, with a transparent roof that swoops upward like a circus tent being torn away by a stiff wind. The drawings are ready, but that’s it: a plan for public funding has been rejected once already, and the issue shows little sign of rejuvenation. Oakland hopes to move out of the stadium it shares with the football Raiders—it’s the only stadium that still hosts both an N.F.L. and M.L.B. team—but funding seems equally questionable. Almost every other team already has either an icon that will not be torn down (Fenway, Wrigley), or a stadium that, in the last twenty years, has been designed by Populous. The retro mold has finally been broken, but this might be the last chance a new style gets for some time.
Photograph by Michael Schmelling.
Recently, I was in the offices of Populous, the sports-architecture firm, looking through several boxes of papers documenting the design process of the company’s newest stadium, Marlins Park. “Mr. Loria told us to make a piece of art,” Earl Santee, the lead designer on the stadium, told me, referring to the Marlins owner and art collector Jeffrey Loria. In addition to feasibility studies, there were hand-drawn renderings of a bobblehead museum and a nine-item list of “primary design objectives,” from April 2008. The top goal was creating “a ballpark that is quintessentially Miami,” which meant, according to a list of adjectives that the architects drew up:
Palms
Destination
Diverse
Recreation
Beach
They made a similar list for Little Havana, the stadium’s immediate neighborhood:
Cuba
Pastels
Canopies
Organic
Everything is Unique
All this was prepared for a presentation meant for Loria and the Marlins—and the architects knew what their client was hoping to hear. “The site is a gallery space with the ballpark representing gallery walls,” one page said, adding that the stadium would be a space for “the performance art displayed on the field of play.” The overriding goal: “Pure Color. Pure Art. Pure Baseball.”
The Marlins unveiled their new stadium on Wednesday night—on “ESPN1,” as Ben McGrath noted (subscribers can also read Ben’s full account of the Marlins rebrand)—to mostly fawning architectural reviews. Even those who don’t like green, or fish, or that thing in center field, had at least one point of praise: well, it’s different! There were no bricks, no green iron trusses. This was gleaming white and shining glass, an homage to Richard Meier, not Honus Wagner.
All this in a stadium designed by Populous, the firm responsible for eighteen of the last twenty-three M.L.B. parks—including both Yankee Stadium and Citi Field—most of which have embraced the past as much as the future.The retro trend in stadium design, led off by the Populous-designed Oriole Park at Camden Yards, was well received until it became even more derivative than it already was. It’s not quite right to credit or blame Populous for the trend—as the firm’s architects insist, they work in the service of their clients, and for the past twenty years, their clients mostly wanted retro ballparks—but they certainly enabled it.
Of most interest among the Marlins Park documents were several pages that included four different designs presented to the Marlins back in 2008. Design Concept A was close to the final plan—it had more glass, and a large red stripe along the side (“water merging with land”)—but the others were even more radical departures from current stadium form. Concept B was square, with the sharp-edged corners of large white balconies forming the exterior. The inspiration was a cruise liner. From the sky, Concept C, “a theater for baseball,” looked like an artist’s palette, with a circular roof sliding off and on like a runny splotch of paint. Design Concept D was square, too, but with curved corners and a “dramatic cloak” of blue and tan around the side. It’s clear that Concept A was the architect’s favorite—and, ultimately, the team’s—but it’s worth noting that there were more radical designs under consideration.
So, with Marlins Park open, where will these radical designs go next? Nowhere, perhaps. Populous has already designed a stadium for Tampa Bay, with a transparent roof that swoops upward like a circus tent being torn away by a stiff wind. The drawings are ready, but that’s it: a plan for public funding has been rejected once already, and the issue shows little sign of rejuvenation. Oakland hopes to move out of the stadium it shares with the football Raiders—it’s the only stadium that still hosts both an N.F.L. and M.L.B. team—but funding seems equally questionable. Almost every other team already has either an icon that will not be torn down (Fenway, Wrigley), or a stadium that, in the last twenty years, has been designed by Populous. The retro mold has finally been broken, but this might be the last chance a new style gets for some time.
Photograph by Michael Schmelling.
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...#ixzz1rHx2yU70
Would love to see the other designs.
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