The Milwaukee Bucks are holding a ribbon cutting and block party for the grand opening of their new downtown arena, the Fiserv Forum, on Sunday.
Designed by architecture firm Populous, the new building has a sloping roof bending down to wrap around the north facade. The patchwork surface is made of hand-crafted panels of ochre-colored, patinated zinc. The shape is unique and unmistakable. While many big arenas can seem static or boxy, Populous senior architect Brad Clark said, the goal for the $524-million Fiserv Forum was to create a dramatic form that was smooth and inspired by nature.
“What we wanted to do was to do something that was a little more gestural, that brought in a form and a materiality that was different than had been done before and was appropriate for Milwaukee,” said Clark, who was the design principal for the project. “That skin was really an abstraction of—imagine an abstraction of an old Chris-Craft boat or a boat hull from the various water features that surround the city, whether that’s the Milwaukee River or Lake Michigan.”
Clark chuckled while recounting another interpretation he recently heard—that of a beer barrel. Brewing is, after all, a famously indigenous industry in Milwaukee. Though not the intended appearance, that idea fit the sentiment Clark espoused for the project, an arena “that was forward-looking yet was respectful of the past and of the place.”
Another key upgrade over its predecessor is technology. The neighboring and soon-to-be-demolished BMO Harris Bradley Center, which opened 30 years ago, was not fan-friendly in that regard, with spotty Wi-Fi and cell coverage.
Clark said a lot of effort was put into ensuring the new building had the appropriate modern technology, with distributive antennae integrated “modestly” inside the arena and with LEDs lighting the exterior and throughout the interior ribbon boards. Fiserv Forum is said to have 850 digital screens, 500 Wi-Fi access points transmitting 20,000 megabytes per second of cellular data, and a 4,000-square-foot central scoreboard. A “Coors Light Beer Button” has been incorporated into the team app for ordering beers to be delivered to fans’ seats. The building is working towards a LEED Silver certification, an environmental responsibility rating for structures.
In detailing the vision for the construction, Clark described the need for “neighborhoods” within the 724,000 square-foot space. The entry lobby is the “community living room,” for instance, and the public concourse is not only a path for fans to circulate, but also to congregate at one of four public bars and other market spaces. On the east side of the building is the seven-story glass atrium, topped by the Panorama Club—an area open to all ticketed fans with an angled balcony offering downtown views.
“Really it was the marriage of the more curvaceous facade of the north merging with the more architectonic, rigid, right-angle enclosure for the remainder of the building, including that big glass atrium space,” Clark said of the distinctive paneling.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who in 2013 called the Bradley Center unfit for the league, toured the new arena in April and told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “I’ll just start by saying the exterior is beautiful. I’ve seen arenas all over the United States, all over the world for that matter. And they’ve done a fantastic job. Architecturally, aesthetically, it fits really well within the community.”
