ARCHITECTURAL INSIGHTS
4 fresh takes on Fiserv Forum’s design
Less than a year after opening, downtown Milwaukee’s Fiserv Forum is getting a fresh look from architects and others who care about urban design. The Journal Sentinel spoke with four people who shared their insights about the sports and entertainment arena, as well as its outdoor plaza. This comes as the BMO Harris Bradley Center’s demolition is nearly complete, offering dramatically improved sight lines of Fiserv Forum from the south — and as the Milwaukee Bucks and the team’s arena attract a national TV audience through the NBA playoffs.
“Now, you’re getting this new view,” said Kyle Reynolds, associate professor of architecture at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
The $524 million Fiserv forum was completed in August.
Along with serving as home court for the Bucks and Marquette University men’s basketball team, the building so far has hosted 22 concerts as well as other events.
It also will be the main venue for the Democratic National Convention in July 2020.
Fiserv Forum was designed by Kansas City-based Populous, and Milwaukee’s Eppstein Uhen Architects.
Its financing included $250 million dollars in public cash. The Bucks’ owners paid for the neighboring entertainment center, featuring Good City Brewing, Punch Bowl Social, Drink Wisconsinbly and Mecca Sports Bar and Grill.
Along with Reynolds, the Journal Sentinel spoke with Jim Shields, architect at HGA’s Milwaukee office; Whitney Gould, a Plan Commission member and retired Journal Sentinel architec
tural critic; and Linda Keane, a professor of architecture and environmental design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and architect at Shorewood based Studio 1032.
Here are their comments:
Kyle Reynolds
The Fiserv Forum’s exterior design “is a little bit lacking,” Reynolds said.
“It seems like it’s based on some design trends that were maybe popular a decade ago but were watered down,” he said.
Reynolds also cited the roof line, where bronze-colored zinc panels along the building’s sides gives way to white material. That creates an unfinished look, he said.
However, with the Bradley Center’s demolition nearly finished, Reynolds said, “there’s a new vantage point from which I think (Fiserv Forum) is much more attractive.”
That new sight line is important because the arena’s main face to the public is oriented east, toward the entertainment center, with a turn south, toward the former Bradley Center.
“That face seems to be the most compelling to me,” Reynolds said about the view from south of the Fiserv Forum.
“That’s the one that always seems to look like the front door even though it isn’t,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Fiserv Forum’s interior, featuring a more intimate seating bowl and a six-story atrium at the main entrance, is great, Reynolds said.
“I really like what they’ve done, and how open they’ve made it,” he said.
Reynolds also praised the plaza between the arena and the entertainment center, which began opening its bars and restaurants in January.
“That’s an exciting urban space,” he said.
But, that comment came with a caveat.
“I do think more residential in the area is necessary to make (the plaza) more successful in the long run,” Reynolds said.
The plaza is “doing well now because it’s new and Bucks are doing well,” he said.
Jim Shields
Shields was concerned when the Common Council and Mayor Tom Barrett in 2016 approved the Bucks’ request to shut down one block of what was then North Fourth Street — now North Phillips Avenue — to accommodate the plaza.
Most U.S. pedestrian plazas created by closing streets, including one on West Historic Mitchell Street in the 1980s, “have been so unsuccessful that they’ve had to be reopened,” he said.
But Shields is a fan of the Fiserv Forum plaza.
“The plaza seems to be working better than I thought it would,” he said. Again, there is a caveat.
“You have to wait for a year when the Bucks aren’t in the playoffs and have a sleepy period to see what the plaza is like,” Shields said.
Also, Shields is a fan of the Fiserv Forum’s interior atrium.
“The escalator and balconies are strikingly beautiful and really interesting,” he said.
But, the white roof is “disappointing ly visible.”
“That has really put a damper on the appreciation of the exterior of the building,” Shields said.
He has another concern.
The arena’s upper level lounge, protruding from the east facade, has an angular feel that “doesn’t seem to work really well with the big curve of the swooping roof,” he said.
Whitney Gould
Gould remains a Fiserv Forum fan. “I thought from the beginning this was a really striking, bold building,” she said.
“For the most part, it’s just a very adventurous and, I think, quite witty take on modern design,” Gould said.
And the Bradley Center’s demise reinforces her opinions.
“The view (from the south) now is startling,” Gould said.
But, she wishes the area around the arena, particularly facing the plaza, had better landscape design.
It’s understandable that the Bucks wanted the plaza built with minimal green space to better accommodate crowds of people who gather for basketball games and other events, Gould said.
However, a landscape architectural firm that works with urban spaces, such as Brooklyn Bridge Park designer Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates Inc., could have been hired, she said.
“I think it would have made the whole site better integrated,” Gould said.
Also, Gould is no fan of shutting down city streets.
She says the plaza could have been created by using barriers to temporarily close the street instead of permanently banning traffic.
“I’m not thrilled about that part of it,” she said.
Still, the plaza and arena are “proving to be just a really exciting and enlivening addition to downtown,” Gould said.
Linda Keane
One of Keane’s biggest concerns was the decision to create the plaza east of the Fiserv Forum.
It would have been better to build it south of the arena, she said, on a portion of the development site created by the Bradley Center’s demolition.
An outdoor plaza at that south-oriented location would get more sunshine — as long as new buildings eventually developed on that block are designed properly, Keane said.
That would be especially appreciated during the winter.
“This is Wisconsin and you want outdoor space facing south,” Keane said. “You want any kind of sunshine coming our way.”
Keane also believes the plaza is undersized.
“Public spaces are always a rare commodity,” she said. “This space is tiny for what this could possibly be.”
Also, Keane doesn’t like seeing streets closed.
“I think anytime one building takes over the street it does something to the mobility of the city,” she said.
As for the building itself, Keane isn’t overwhelmed.
“I’ve gotten used to it,” she said. “It’s a big building,” Keane said. “I don’t know that it’s an elegant or beautiful building. But it provides a lot of public amenities that people seem to like.”
Tom Daykin can be emailed at tdaykin@jrn.com and followed on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.