If you aren’t expecting it, Allianz Field looks like an alien mother ship strategically landed at an area known as “Midway” between Minneapolis and St. Paul. Technically this unearthly framework has risen from the grounds of the old St. Paul bus barn. Populous, formerly known as HOK Sport Venue Event, was tasked with the design of the stadium. Never failing in creating a memorable aesthetic that becomes a destination in and of itself; Populous created a venue that features undulating “driver tubes” to create the facade and a translucent polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) skin that will be backlit to change colors at night, for a kind of “close encounter” of the soccer kind.
“That’s what has made this installation unique,” says Jeff Manick, general superintendent for Olympic Companies Inc., charged with doing the exterior stucco on the project. “From the outside you won’t even see our work.”