Everything Looks Up to Me

OK, let’s pretend you’ve been to so many years of architecture school, think you know what you’re doing, and then are asked to design a new stadium in say, Baton Rouge, Louisiana. You then forget that both teams stand up, that the “chain gang” officials stand up, the cheerleaders stand up and the cops stand up on the sidelines of a typical football game. Oh yeah, you also forget that photographers stand up also on the sidelines. So forgetting all that, you build the fans’ seats, all the way around the stadium, ON THE FRONT ROW AT FIELD LEVEL. So therefore, those fans can’t see the action. So the solution, of course, is that everyone aforementioned gets to stand up EXCEPT the photographers. OK, I’m complaining somewhat because I’m 56 years old and not as spry as I used to be (not that I was ever really spry). But also, this requirement that photogs kneel the whole game is dangerous as well. It is tough enough for photographers to get out of the way from players’ rushing out of bounds when the photos are standing, much less when the photographer has to get up from a kneeling position.

It does seem that modern stadium designers have learned a lesson and have built the front row higher. But why, like so many things, did that common sense realizations take decades?

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