The Rose Bowl, Memorial Coliseum and the genius of classical-modern

photos by Brian Libby

2010 began for me not in Portland, but in sunny Pasadena, California to see my beloved Oregon Ducks compete in the nation’s most storied college football game: the Rose Bowl.

Needless to say, the game’s outcome was a disappointment. Oregon hasn’t won the Rose Bowl since 1917, and I really thought going into the game that the Ducks had the better team. But Ohio State played smart, disciplined football with a star-making performance from quarterback Terrelle Pryor, and the Ducks shot themselves in the foot with mistakes.

 

Even so, I was absolutely blown away by the experience of seeing a football game in the Rose Bowl stadium. And it wasn’t just because I was seeing my Ducks play in the “Granddaddy of Them All”. Watching a game from the Rose Bowl is a spectacular architectural experience.

Sports stadiums for football come in two basic types: the simple bowl and the stacked deck. Bowl-shaped stadiums were once common in the early 20th century as football first became popular, but they have since been vastly outnumbered by stadiums with upper decks hovering over the field-level seats. Besides the Rose Bowl, a handful of bowl stadiums remain, such as Michigan Stadium and Notre Dame Stadium.

When attending a game in one of these football stadiums, some fans actually prefer sitting in upper-deck seats instead of at the top of a bowl, because they’re closer to the field (although higher up in the air). However, if you’re a design enthusiast, there’s no contest as to which stadium makes a purer, more beautiful building and experience: a simple and elegant bowl.

 

 

In this way, the Rose Bowl, despite being a work of 1920s modern or art deco architecture, also recalls the classical architecture of ancient Greece and Rome. I don’t mean that it has Doric columns or the standard base-middle-top configurations. Rather, the Rose Bowl recalls the symmetry of classical architecture: the notion that there is a spiritual quality evident in the simplicity and symmetry of form.

In ancient Rome, for example, the center of all cities was a large open square called a forum. A descendant of the Greek agora, or assembly place, the forum developed into the Roman amphitheater. Instead of terracing the seats into a hillside, the Romans tiered them within freestanding, oval buildings. If you go to Rome today and look at the ancient Colosseum, which was begun by Emperor Vespasian in AD 70 and completed a decade later by Emperor Titus, it looks very much like the stadium in Pasadena I visited on New Year’s Day.

 

 

The awe I experienced being in the Rose Bowl at its blend of massive scale and ultra refined symmetrical forms reminded me of what I love about Memorial Coliseum in Portland. It too is the absolute simplest of forms: an oval seating bowl inside a glass box. It recalls the efforts of the ancient Greeks to strive for perfection in the appearance of their buildings, finding dimensions in harmony with nature and the human body. “Symmetry and the unity of parts to the whole were important to Greek architecture,” writes Debora Dietsch in Architecture for Dummies, “as these elements reflected the democratic city-state pioneered by the Greek civilization.”

In other words, the simple sculptural beauty of Memorial Coliseum – the organically shaped oval seating bowl inside the geometrically perfect glass exterior box – is also a symbol of all that we strive for to make Portland a civic success. What’s more, like the Rose Bowl stadium, Memorial Coliseum can be celebrated as an architectural icon that is at once the most populist of places – an arena for sports and arts and rallies – as well as the most refined expression of art and design.

  

 

Over email today I conversed with another member of the Friends of Memorial Coliseum, designer Randy Higgins, about this connection - between simple modern 20th century arenas and stadiums and classical Greco-Roman architecture. He had this to say:

It's important to remember that back then architecture was rocket science. It was the most significant thing a society could produce. Only societies that had established a high degree of social and economic stability could coordinate the communal and extended effort to make a building.

What happened then is the same thing happening in China and Dubai today, or in the USA in the early part of the 20th century. A society proves it has come of age by going through the effort of making something great - something previously thought impossible.  In this manner the building is meant to be known not as architecture but as themata: a 'wonder.'

Memorial Coliseum was created as an example of Portland's civic identity coming into being. It was conceived as a wonder with its incredible size supported on four columns, and the design follows suite to best express that singular act so that every visitor can bear witness to the wonder of its creation.  

I know some of this talk (mine or Randy's) can seem highfalutin, with all the classical references and talk of themata. But this is an essential component, in my mind, of our large public buildings and gathering places: the ability to transcend the experiences we have there.

Obviously, this isn’t meant a post about more real-life topics like the Rose Quarter planning effort or the Stakeholder Advisory Committee vetting proposals for Memorial Coliseum from amusement parks to hydroponic gardens. Instead, it’s an effort to communicate how truly special stadiums like the Rose Bowl and arenas like Memorial Coliseum are, both as community/national landmarks and as – more than 2,000 years after Western civilization first flourished in ancient Greece and Rome – a quintessential example of how the biggest places can also be the simplest and most beautiful.

As it happens, the Rose Bowl stadium will be renovated in the years ahead. But the plan is to return the structure closer to its original configuration. The first ten rows of seats on the end zone sides (where I was lucky enough to sit) will be removed so the rose bushes flanking each goal, as they did in the 1920s, will be returned. Meanwhile, we seem to float every possible idea for Memorial Coliseum except the only one that makes any sense: preserving it as a multi-purpose arena.

We can’t let the Coliseum and Rose Quarter debate be rooted entirely in issues of money, and we needn't go searching for new ideas for Memorial Coliseum. The fact is that Portland has been blessed with a very special building, a work of architecture that unites the best in contemporary and classical design. What's more, its original program as a multipurpose arena - a gathering place - is part of Memorial Coliseum's essential DNA. I already knew that, and so did many of you reading this. But after spending New Year’s Day in another gathering place with that same genius of design, it is a reminder to remain vigilant in supporting the preservation of Portland’s so-called Glass Palace — not as a fitness center, aquarium, botanical garden, amusement park or museum, but as the simple yet spectacular multipurpose arena it was born to be.

Comments

[Steve R.]

Great post, Brian. There is something about the simple bowl that just speaks to me, and I'm not even a sports fan -- other than hockey, of course. :)

I know this isn't supposed to be about RQ redev. efforts, but I just have to respond to this:

"...we seem to float every possible idea for Memorial Coliseum except the only one that makes any sense: preserving it as a multi-purpose arena."

I'm committed to just that, and I'm not alone on the committee. Also, it's what the Blazers and Winterhawks want (in perhaps an altered form), so that pretty much trumps proposals for hotels, museums, train stations and velodromes.

[gerrrg]

With your post's title, "The Rose Bowl, Memorial Coliseum and the genius of classical-modern", I actually thought you were referring to the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles. THAT Coliseum in my opinion, offers an incredible processional experience from the street level into the spectator stands, and is quite the sight to see the Olympic torches blazing in the late evening sky when you're in the crowd of over 90,000 people.

While the Rose Bowl is truly a grand structure and a great experience, the Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles provides a more apt comparison to the presentation and experience to the Memorial Coliseum up here in Portland.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/43/11-11-06-LA-Coliseum-USC-UO.jpg/800px-11-11-06-LA-Coliseum-USC-UO.jpg

[Brian Libby]

Great point about the LA Coliseum. And my USC-alum sister would certainly agree with you. I just wish they'd fix the seating configuration that exists now. For USC football games they actually have a set of temporary bleachers placed in front of the regular end zone seats. I'd love to see USC and a future NFL team headquartered there (and NOT in City of Industry, as is the current proposal) with the seating bowl of the Coliseum redone to get fans on all sides right up to field level.

[Greg]

Bummer about the Ducks. If Pryor had played like that all season, Ohio State would be national champions.

We have sparred about the MC in the past, but what's done is done, and if they want to re-use the facility in anywhere near its current form, there really is no feasible alternative other than in its present form. My hope is that they can reconfigure the bowl a bit to get the hockey dimensions correct, lower the seating capacity (via the bowl and maybe club seats), and then really push it as a "PSU-East" facility for hoops and other events that work best in an 8,000-10,000 seat facility. I doubt it would pay for itself financially but at least you'd have two nice facilities (three counting PGE Park) that work well for their intended purposes.

[Greg]

One other side note - I am 99% sure we are going to lose the Portland Beavers next season. It's not a huge loss in the sense that it is minor league sports and Portland is no longer a minor league town, but as someone who loves and appreciates baseball stadium architecture (and hates PGE for baseball), it will be a sad day when they leave for good.

[Scott Tice]

I really had no love for the Memorial Coliseum before the last half of 2009. I have changed my mind about the building after seeing the curtains being drawn back, literally. I grew up in that building and cannot recall a time when the curtains were open to allow the simplicity of the graceful curve of the oval against the background of the sky through the windows. It is blogs such as yours that have been key in making me a believer... thank you. Now what of those ugly grain elevators?

[billb]

good post B , [go Ducks BBall] still I must suggest that we all keep an open mind about the adaptive re-purposing of the MC. While it is wonderful to keep our finest works of Modern Architecture , they must function in our times. Firmness-Commodity-Delight , eh.
If one demands old buildings sit around un-altered and under - utilized , then you turn the City into a Museum of useless old buildings. So please show up at the Mem Col Meeting and chat with presenters about their concepts.

[Brian Libby]

Bill,

Great point. Of course the MC and modern architecture must "function in our times" as you put it.

However, Memorial Coliseum already does that. It attracted as many events last year as the Rose Garden. It's a popular multipurpose arena.

[Mudd]

Dude, those grain bins are beautiful and they are part of the historic fabric of the neighborhood.

[Andrew]

Interestingly, Ohio Stadium is the same age (1922) and the Rose Bowl Stadium but uses the 'stacked deck' configuration. I'm of two minds as two which I prefer as a spectator. I suppose whether or not you're under the deck makes all the difference in that consideration. Beautiful buildings both.

[Fred Leeson]

I'd like to see Memorial Coliseum preserved as a spectator arena. Perhaps some amenities (drinking facilites, alas) could be erected in the upper bowl where seats are least needed. It should be used for PSU sports (why expand the Stott Center when there's a great arena already in the fareless zone?) and hockey and concerts. The acoustics are not good, but I'm sure they could be improved with movable devices. I think the Blazers could make good use of it, too...how about multiple big TV screens simultaneously showing all the views seen in the production truck...with cheap beer and visits from the Blazer dancers...it could be a really hopping and fun scene, since the Rose Garden is already sold out. I really think we've had a dearth of imagination in regards to this building.

[billb]

B , for all your readers the MC Event is Jan 26 from 5-8 [at the MC] I don't disagree with you that the MC is a working arena now , but for a small group of PDXers.Mostly sports fans ,
[and really does small town hockey need such an important building].
I and others are proposing new uses that can serve broad and forward-looking sections of Portlanders , Oregonians and Green Tourists. So please come by and chat!

[Tony]

Brian, you sure have a fascination with bowls. Maybe this is a carry over from college?
I was there at the Rose bowl as well. From inside the bowl, it was a beautiful place to take in a game. I was seven rows from the top and while it seemed a mile and a half away, it wasn't that bad of a view either. And yes, this was from the end-zone.

However, my criticism of the bowl is this, the egress there was simply atrocious. Without a concourse level, 100,000 people exiting through tiny tunnels just isn't a good idea. I am aware it was built close to 80 or so year. The other thing, with having a capacity of nearly 100,000, my thoughts were that Autzen, at 58,000 seemed a lot bigger, and I know for sure, it is a whole lot louder. Autzen would be a more contemporary approach to the bowl wouldn't you say? I like it the best, but... I'm a duck.

Sad about the results of the game, but next year, we look mean! On paper. Go Ducks!

[dining room table]

I am visiting that coliseum almost every month. I can see the fast improvement of it. Now I think it is the best coliseum in this country. Watching exciting game in that place is one great experience to everyone.