Instead of bulldozing the enormous old B&O warehouse, they incorporated it into the design. Instead of building with a clean slate at the edge of the suburbs, they designed the ballpark in the heart of the city. Their vision was “an old-fashioned traditional baseball park with modern amenities.” They borrowed ideas from Ebbets Field, Shibe Park, the Polo Grounds, and other ballparks that had been demolished and replaced with concrete donuts. The architectural team chose to look backward to look forward. And what did they have in common? They all played in a baseball-only facility, a facility that was designed for baseball and did not compromise architecturally for other sports.” “Let’s look at the most successful baseball franchises out there. When the team’s owner pushed for a multi-purpose stadium, the team president, Larry Lucchino, pushed back. Oriole Park in Camden Yards would be quirky, creative, connected to the community, and built with the players and fans in mind. But the architects in Baltimore had a different idea. In the process, they created something flashy and novel rather than timeless and innovative.īy the mid-1980s, nearly every Major League Baseball team had built a massive, modern, donut-shaped stadium. In constructing the stadium of the future, the design team had mistakenly believed that innovation was future-driven rather than purpose-driven. It was designed for the future. Within two decades, this “8th Wonder of the World” became a concrete relic of the false promise of futurism. The Astrodome wasn’t designed for the players. Unfortunately, this AstroTurf led to career-ending injuries for the players. If you grew up in the ’80s, you probably remember the mint green carpet that used to pass as a baseball field. But this, in turn, killed the grass, which led to the patented AstroTurf, a smooth, clean-looking, easy to manage artificial turf that added to the futuristic feel of the stadium. A simple pop fly nearly blinded the players, so they had to paint the ceiling tiles black.
It was the anti-Fenway (the oldest existing ballpark).īut within minutes of the first pitch, people noticed a fatal flaw. With the largest JumboTron, the trendiest color choice and a very modern, symmetrical design, it embodied the Space Age. No more bad weather or quirky dimensions or anything else that made baseball messy and unpredictable. When it opened in 1965, reporters dubbed it the “8th Wonder of the World.” This was the future. The Astrodome was a modern miracle, a Space Age wonder, with a glass dome, high-tech air-conditioning, and the world’s biggest scoreboard.
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