Second impressions of Matthew Knight Arena after Federer vs. Nadal

Rafael Nadal vs. Roger Federer, Knight Arena (photo by Brian Libby)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Tuesday was my second trip to Matthew Knight Arena in Eugene since its January opening, and the first time seeing an event or experiencing the building with a full house.

The event was a fun one: Roger Federer, greatest tennis player of all-time, playing an exhibition match against the second-greatest player of our time and an all-time great in his own right, Rafael Nadal. As if that weren't enough, Maria Sharapova played Vika Azarenka, and they all got together for a mixed-doubles match that was crashed by my favorite tennis player of all time, John McEnroe. Oh, and the top two Oregon Duck quarterbacks of the modern era, Joey Harrington and Dennis Dixon, served as honorary line judges. What a blast!

The $227 million, TVA Architects-designed Knight Arena is a huge complex, with practice courts adjacent to the 12,000 seat arena and surrounding glass-ensconced concourse. Even so, I was surprised to find that those concourses felt quite cramped in the time before the event. The effect was helped greatly by the fact that Knight Arena has three main entrance/exit points: people weren't clogged in one place. Even so, moving around the concourse (we made three laps to kill time before the match), one couldn't help but wonder if the design could have loosened the belt, so to speak. For such an arena, it was hard to move - even long before the event filled to capacity.

Federer vs. Nadal, Knight Arena, 3/8/11 (photos by Brian Libby)

The glass facade covering much of the Knight Arena exterior is amongst its best attributes. Architect Robert Thompson of TVA Architects has said that Memorial Coliseum was the arena's biggest architectural inspiration, which is a wonderful honor to the landmark Portland glass palace. At the same time, the gorgeous expanses of glass left me wanting more. A substantial portion of the facade is not glass, because the design puts stairways and elevators for accessing the top of the seating bowl on the edge of the building. Even with this configuration, I'd have liked to see more glass. Why not a glass stairway and elevator to give the building the complete, Coliseum-like transparency it seems to want?

That said, watching sport inside Matthew Knight Arena was a major treat. (And it was especially nice seeing tennis instead of basketball so Oregon's hideous painted basketball court was hidden away.) As with Autzen Stadium, there just doesn't seem to be a bad seat in the house. I was sitting about halfway up the seating bowl, in the corner, and felt like I had a superlative spot. The interior arena-proper was designed by Ellerbe Beckett, the firm that also designed the Autzen expansion (from 41,000 to 55,000 seats) in 2002. Ellerbe is, along with HOK, arguably the nation's most prolific and accomplished designer of American sports arenas and stadiums. It shows up in the practical, functional success of both Knight Arena and Autzen Stadium. For all the enjoyment one gets out of a glass facade, or a striking exterior form, these are first and foremost places to watch sports and entertainment. And both of UO's major gathering places are now truly wonderful architectural spaces for being a spectator.

Roger Federer at Knight Arena (photos by Brian Libby)

Visiting Knight Arena this second time, and first for an event with an audience, I also developed a better sense of the building's integration with the rest of the campus. There is a pathway leading from the back of the arena directly into the fabric of the campus, with Hayward Field just down the street amidst a host of dorms and campus buildings.

Has anyone else out there been to a basketball game or other event at Knight? What's your review of the architecture, both aesthetically and practically speaking?

One final impression after the night at Knight: As impressive as this arena and the Jaqua Center (built last year) are, they illuminate all the more for the University of Oregon to upgrade its standard dormitories. On the walk to Knight Arena, I passed dorms with concrete facades chipped away to reveal the rebar underneath. It's right now a tale of two students at UO, the athlete and the academic, with one in the equivalent of a new Cadillac and the other in a broken down Plymouth. Hopefully in the long run these impressive sports palaces will be merely the first step in a more egalitarian architectural facelift for the university.

 

Comments

[Daniel Ronan]

Brian, thank you for mentioning the utterly skewed priorities of the University of Oregon.

Indeed, I agree with you when you say "it's right now a tale of two students at UO, the athlete and the academic." However, I take issue with your whimsical and uniformed hope that somehow more egalitarian architecture will take place. With all of this starchitecture going on, the University will be hard pressed to find money to address the apparent inequalities in favor of newer, bigger and grander spaces for many that receive free tuition.

It's sickening, and unfortunately, I think your raving reviews of Matt Arena merely feed into the mantra that "athletics helps academics" - please, show me some studies and show me the money.

[Brian Libby]

Daniel, thank you for your comment.

You do make a fair point, but I'd argue that it's not as black and white as you ultimately make it out.

Walking to the Knight Arena I passed the Knight Law Library which was also bankrolled by Phil Knight. And there have been donations by others that have made possible other academic campus buildings like the Lillis Business Complex.

Instead, I'd argue that shoddy old dorms are a phenomenon that plagues many colleges.

At my alma mater, New York University, we had an impressive Philip Johnson-designed library and other nice buildings, but my dorm was a decay dump of an old tenement apartment building. Besides, we're talking about buildings worth hundreds of millions of dollars being bequeathed to the university.

Even if one might like to see Knight turn his attention next to bequeathing money for dorms, we shouldn't be quite so quick to judge the athletic buildings without remembering that they are gifts. I know there are sometimes costs for UO that are associated with that, be it financially or in terms of the message of inequality it sends. Even so, Knight's benefaction helps the school more than it hurts - at least in my opinion.

Does it mean I like seeing the swoosh become practically UO's second logo, or concession stands in the arena called "Uncle Phil's"? Or the artwork of Phil and Penny Knight in the bathrooms of the Jaqua Center? No, no and no. But a lot of other schools would dearly love to have that problem.

And at the end of the day, besides whatever intellectual arguments I make, I also fully and humbly confess that my inclination to give UO the benefit of the doubt is affected by the fact I'm a fanatical Ducks fan. It makes me less impartial, and I accept that, but I say so in full disclosure as always.

[Sworegonarchitect.blogspot.com]

Brian: You asked if anyone has been to a basketball game or other event at Matthew Knight Arena with a review from an architectural or practical perspective. I have on my blog. Here's the URL:

http://sworegonarchitect.blogspot.com/2011/02/matthew-knight-arenaa-new-landmark-for.html

I likewise commented on the Jaqua Center. Here's the link for that post:

http://sworegonarchitect.blogspot.com/2010/06/june-aia-swo-chapter-meeting-recap.html

As always, I love your blog and insights. Keep up the good work!

[Daniel Ronan]

Indeed Brian, you bring up some good points, many universities would love to have the problem we have here at the University of Oregon.

More germane to this post's content, I would say that this building is out-of-scale with its surroundings. It's physical footprint is massive, it breaks up the street grid and is not amenable to other forms of development or walking in between.

What sort of message does this send on a public university campus? While I'll admit that the previous site left much to be desired, has the development improved the urban design of the area? My argument would be a resounding "no."

For comparison, just look at the campus' original quad between Lillis and the library, it's surroundings are humane, the buildings face the space. The Matt Knight Arena faces towards a major arterial but away from the campus itself.

While I respect your affinity for buildings, I feel that architecture as a discipline has become too easily distracted by what is immediately on a site rather than including its surrounding context. Until architecture starts to work with urban design and planning, I think we'll continue to see buildings that lack context and soul.

[kittens]

I am sorry but that is some LOW quality design work from TVA. Just as bad as other architectural "gifts" dropped on the campus like Knight and the Knight law. Extremely mediocre. Not even going into the whole UO priorities discussion.