Recently, I had the honor of being able to go back to photograph and film an important work of architecture designed by my colleagues at HKS: AT&T Stadium. It’s best known as the home of the Dallas Cowboys, yet it is much more than that. It’s a design that changed the way people understand the relationship between the physical and digital worlds during events. Between the field of play, the video screen, and the screens we now hold in our hands during games — perception changed.
Realizing this, designers began to invent different experiences within the stadium: clubs, places to stand, to sit, to relax, to unwind, to dance, to hear music, to experience art. All of these activities unfold at multiple scales, sized to connect unique groups of people. Ask any NFL fan, and they will say: AT&T Stadium changed the game. It continues to do so, setting the stage for what my brilliant colleagues are soon to reveal at our next, newest NFL venue coming to Inglewood, California in the summer of 2020.
In December 2019, AT&T was honored as “Facility of the Decade” by the Sports Business Journal, even though it was designed at the beginning of the decade. Many others followed, having grown from the example it set — yet it’s the stadium that set the bar. It’s a work of architecture that has been seen and experienced by millions of people around the globe, and yet: one of its most significant stories is still known by a relative few.
Within its walls, and on its campus, it’s designed to incorporate a world-class collection of contemporary art. The story of HKS’ first commission for the Jones family, back at the old Texas Stadium, is painted into a greater-than-life-sized mural by Franz Ackerman. Just as fans in Chicago gather around sculptor Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate, aka “The Bean,” in Chicago’s Millennium Park, they gather to see themselves reflected in Kapoor’s “Sky Mirror” at AT&T stadium.
Art isn’t simply at the stadium; it’s part of it. Ascending a grand stair, Mel Bochner demands that fans get their heads in the game before they can even view the field with his mural, “Win!” Data exposes the significance of art at the stadium; in 2018, more people experienced the contemporary art at AT&T Stadium than they did at the Art Institute of Chicago.
My colleague Julieta Chiquillo explains more in her piece “AT&T Stadium’s Growing Art Collection Steals the Spotlight as Other Venues Take Note.” It’s well worth the read, for those interested in the role that art can play in spaces of celebration.
