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Utopia and dystopia seem to marry at MSG Sphere, the immense performance hall that the owners of Madison Square Garden presented last week and that U2 will premiere with a series of concerts dedicated to Achtung Baby in September. The utopia part has to do with its structure: the MSG Sphere is the largest spherical construction in the world with 157 meters of maximum perimeter (in reality, the building is not a complete sphere, but is supported on a podium) and 66 meters high, which refers to Buckminster Fuller and the tradition of gedodésicas domes and countercultural engineering of the twentieth century. Until now, the largest sphere in the world was in Stockholm and has a perimeter of 110 meters. In recent years, we've seen new dials in Norman Foster's Apple stores and at the Renzo Piano Film Museum in Los Angeles. Although they are memories that are far away, both Piano and Foster are also children of the techno-optimistic culture of the 60s.

And the dystopia part? Above its podium, the MSG Sphere has no cracks to the outside, it is a monolithic concrete façade covered by 1.2 million LED light pickups that create the illusion of a gigantic canvas. Last week, the owners of the building premiered the large spherical screen with more or less artistic montages: reproductions of the Earth and the Moon, lava flows, psychedelic compositions with basketballs ... The word storytelling is highlighted in the promotional texts of the MSG Sphere, but everyone assumes that its screen will be the largest advertising poster in the world. In addition, in the first photographs of the projections on the sphere, you can also see the lights of a large traffic jam on neighboring Sands Avenue (more a freeway than an avenue). More than a Buckminster Fuller dome, the MSG Sphere resembles the façade-screen of Blade Runner in which a Japanese woman appeared to observe Agent Deckard's movements.

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The Paper Sphere.

The good name of bad architecture

  • Writing: EDUARDO PRIETO

The good name of bad architecture

Architecture.

Why 'twisted skyscrapers' are the fetish of the lawless city to come

  • Writing: LUIS ALEMANY Madrid

Why 'twisted skyscrapers' are the fetish of the lawless city to come

Some moderately informed spectator would have guessed that the project is the work of Populous, the closest thing to a multinational studio-consultancy that has appeared in architecture in recent decades. Populous, based in Kansas City and without an architect author with whom to identify his work, is basically dedicated to building stadiums: he has made 14 courts for the NFL and 10 for the NBA, has signed the reform of the central court of Wimbledon, the Benfica stadium in Lisbon, Wembley and the Olympic in London ... In Spain, Populous competed for the reforms of the Santiago Bernabéu and the Camp Nou, without success. The transformation of stadiums, from semi-war venues to amusement parks full of sparkles, suites and shops, is, in part, the work of his projects and reports.

PATRICK T. FALLONAFP

The funny thing is that the MSG Sphere is presented as the opposite of a stadium. The justification for the project says that the stadiums that usually host large concerts, whether football fields or closed arenas, are not optimal for concerts and shows. The Sphere will offer the capacity of an NBA superpavilion (17,400 seats and room for 2,600 more standing spectators) in a single curved stand and facing the stage. No spectator will have to turn their head to look diagonally at the stage as is often the case today.

The structure also offers an immense interior wall that can also be used as a cinema screen. In the programming of the MSG Sphere is planned the screening of a film made ad hoc for its structure: Postcard From Earth, by Darren Aronofsky. As a movie theater, La Esfera is prepared to broadcast with parallel sound systems: some stands could listen to the film in Spanish while their neighbors follow it in English. It is also planned that 60% of viewers will have "enriched experiences" in 4D. That is: when images of Antarctica appear on the screen, they will be cold and feel a blow of wind.

And the place? The Sphere is on the second line of the Strip, the avenue of light of Las Vegas, just behind the Venetian Resort, the famous set of hotels and casinos that reproduces the architecture of Venice. That second line has traditionally been the ugly backroom of the Las Vegas stage, a territory of industrial and logistics estates. Now, with Las Vegas in demographic explosion, the area is recycled into residential area. The Sphere has on one side a golf course and, on the other, 200 meters away, an urbanization of high-rise housing that is expected to receive the glow of the new building.

Well, no one is going to live in Las Vegas if they don't tolerate colored lights. The trick of the LED façade seems a mark of our time, obsessed by that of storytelling and willing to commodify public spaces. Hong Kong's M+ museum opened two years ago with a 65-by-110-meter display of light cells. In 2022 the façade was off for a week due to a breakdown. On the energy expenditure of such a building there is no very precise news. But he doesn't go to Las Vegas to save either.

  • Architecture
  • Articles Luis Alemany

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