http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-astrodome-houston-preservation-20131105,03179815.story#axzz2jnf3OOk3
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Houston Astrodome
h4-entertainment.com |
Hello Everyone:
Before I launch into today's rant and rave, I just want to update you on developments in the efforts to save the Tower Records building on the Sunset strip in West Hollywood, California. The full city council meeting to hear the appeal of demolition has been moved, again from November 18 to sometime in December. The hearing was originally scheduled for yesterday but was moved to the eighteenth. Today, I received an email from the leader of cause, Jerome Cleary, announcing that the hearing has been moved yet again. Stay tuned for details. Now on to today's topic. Sports fans, it's the bottom of the ninth inning, bases loaded, full count, and the mighty Houston Astrodome has just struck with voters. It's nervous time for this venerable domed stadium. This icon of postwar American culture opened in 1965 and went on to be widely copied around the world. In his article "Why the Astrodome is worth saving," architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne of the
Los Angeles Times, offers an appreciation of the "eighth wonder of the world" which he describes as "...perfectly embodies postwar U.S. culture in its brach combination of Space Age glamour, broad-shouldered scale and total climate control. Batter up.
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Aerial view of the Astrodome
onlyagame.wbur.org |
The Houston Astrodome, in Houston, Texas, offers an important case study of the relationship between the modern and natural world; how that balance has radically shifted over the last fifty years. Domed stadiums were once potent symbols of how eager American architects were able seal off their buildings from the outside world. Now, they appear to be symbols of the futility of this endeavor. For all of its rich sports history, the Astrodome has languished for the last five years, empty, unused, and threatened with demolition. Yesterday, November 5, 2013, voters in Harris County, where Houston is located, decided against Proposition 2, a ballot measure that would've raised $217 million to save the stadium and repurpose it as a multipurpose event center. Now that the measure has failed, the Astrodome has a few months before it faces the wrecking ball.
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View of the Astrodome roof trusses
columbia.edu |
This icon to mid-century American might was conceived by former Houston mayor and county judge Roy C, Hofheinz. The first pitch was thrown out on April 9, 1965 at an exhibition game between the then Major League Baseball expansion team Astros and the Bronx bombers New York Yankees, with Texas native son and President Lyndon B. Johnson in attendance. The National Football League team Oilers played there from 1968 to 1996. the stadium was designed by Houston-based architects Hermon Lloyd and W.B. Morgan in collaboration with local firm Wilson, Morris, Crain and Anderson. A tip of the cap should also go to Buckminster Fuller, who was experimenting with dome construction at the time and consulted with Mayor Hofheinz.
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Cut away section of the dome
columbia.edu |
The exterior of the Astrodome is wrapped in a repeating rhythm of slender columns, with the void in between filled in with concrete screens in a diamond-shaped pattern. From the parking lot the Astrodome appears to have kinship with postwar buildings including its contemporary, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1965), designed by William Pereira. The pitch is sunk thirty feet below ground, which keeps the exterior profile quite modest. However, the interior is something to behold. The roof span of 642 feet created the largest room ever imagined and the temperature remained in the low 70s, perfect during those sultry summer nights. The air was not only cool, it was dry, the perfect counterpoint to those mosquito-infested, sweaty summer nights. Christopher Hawthorne recounts the time when the Astros played in a temporary stadium that featured concession stands where a person could by fly-swatters!
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We Win!
columbia.edu |
The numerous design drawings suggests the city's interest, four years after late President John F. Kennedy announced he wanted to put a man on the moon, to transform itself from "Bayou City" to "Space City. The space metaphor was carried out to the astronaut suits the groundskeepers wore and the female ushers were called "Spacettes." There was also a suggestion of the Cold War with the massiveness of the building inferring part bunker, part spaceship. During the first season, the Astros played on real grass (the surface baseball should be played on) but the sunlight coming through the lucite roof panels created a glare that distracted the fans and the outfielders trying to catch fly balls. The panels were painted over and the grass died. For the 1966 season, the team asked Monsanto about using the company's new artificial grass-"Chemgrass." Monsanto renamed the material, wait for it, Astroturf and market it around the world. The stadium referenced earlier architecture but with a more modern and forward-looking attitude. Naturally Mr. Hawthorne had to reference the greatest of domed oculus buildings, The Pantheon but the Astrodome takes that touchstone and explodes it.
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Astrodome interior, 2004
en.wikipedia.org |
At the Astrodome, there is not push/pull relationship between climate and structure. By the sixties, climate was something that American architects took upon themselves to control, render unnecessary. In recent years, the symbolic nature of domed architecture has ben upended. Once synonymous with confidence and American engineering prowess, the domed building is now associated with climate anxiety. If you recall, Hurricane Katerina battered the Louisiana Superdome, built in the seventies in New Orleans and modeled on the Astrodome, tearing open the tightly sealed roof and dumping rain and misery on shelter seekers below. The upshot of the situation is that the many of the evacuees were taken to Houston and spent two weeks sleeping in the Astrodome. The point here is the domes were the focus of media coverage following the 2005 hurricane, emblematic of humanity's growing difficulty in preparing for frequent hurricanes, global warming, rising sea levels, and a myriad of environmental threats.
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View from the tunnel
swamplot.com |
This past weekend, Harris County Sports and convention Corporation, which runs the Astrodome and nearby Reliant Stadium where the NFL's Houston Texans have been playing since 2002, held an "Astrodome Yard Sale and Live Auction." This was a sort of prelude to the vote on Proposition 2, bond measure that decided the stadium's fate. The corporation put up for sale assorted memorabilia taken from the stadium. Harris County spends an estimated $2 to $3 million each year on security and maintenance. By taking down the Astrodome, it would free up the money for other purposes and open up more parking spaces and tailgating room. That doesn't sound like the highest and best use for the site, does it? Recent pre-election polls suggested that, despite the city's reputation for preferring new architecture to old, voters were leaning more toward approving Proposition 2. Well, the nays won the day, the measure failed to gain the necessary 53% of the vote needed to pass.
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Remember the Astrodome
dallasnews.com |
Well sports fans we're down to the last out. During the campaign to pass Proposition 2, renderings by the Houston firm Kirksey Architecture were circulated by supporters of the measure presented the interior repurposed for trade shows, skateboard competitions, and other events. The renders also show the addition of four rectangular entry portals that would be added to the exterior. Despite the hubristic attitude toward the environment, the Astrodome deserves a second chance at life because it represents the American confidence and Texas swagger of the sixties. The Astrodome is a moment in time.
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