The Future Of Ballpark Design?

Reeves Wiedeman looks at the chosen and considered designs of Miami's new baseball stadium:

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.

The inner conservative in me loves the retro ballparks, although some are just a little too corny. Take the terrace in Minute Maid park. Sure, it is meant to evoke Cincinnati's Crosley Field, but it looks like a stupid round pile of dirt in straightaway centerfield. Crosley's terrace was more nuanced. Anyway, baseball and modernity are not often linked.