Wintrust Arena in Chicago, Illinois by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

Article source: Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects 

The Wintrust Arena, like Tulsa’s BOK Center, is a multi-purpose events space that hosts the performing arts as well as sports and convention-related events like keynote speeches. While not performing arts centers in the traditional sense, these venues benefitted in a very essential way from Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects’ experience with performing arts center design. The firm’s performing arts team at PCPA led the design effort on these projects, and many of the consultants who contributed to the performing arts centers, including acousticians, theater planners, and stage-lighting consultants, are part of the team.

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

• Architects: Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects
• Project: Wintrust Arena
• Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA
• Client: DePaul University, Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority
• Design Builder: Clark Construction
• Architect of Record, Design Build Team: Moody Nolan
• Bowl Planner: AECOM
• Associate Architect: Interactive Design Architects, Inc.

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

• Acoustic Design: Wrightson, Johnson, Haddon & Williams, Inc.
• Audiovisual and Telecommunications Consulting: Wrightson, Johnson, Haddon & Williams, Inc.
• Civil Engineering: Milhouse Engineering & Construction, Inc.
• Code Consulting: Jensen Hughes
• Graphics/Signage Design: Infinite Scale
• Mechanical and Electrical Engineering: Environmental Systems Design
• Structural Engineering: Stearn-Joglekar, Ltd., Thornton Tomasetti

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

Arenas are often dead spots in the city fabric. Large and opaque, they are only active during events, and even then, the activity is shut away from the life of the street. In Tulsa, and again in Chicago, Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects endeavored to create an arena that contributes positively to the streets that surround it, sharing the activity inside and investing the design with features that are active all the time, not just during the events.

The Wintrust Arena (scheduled to open in the fall of 2017) is located on the Near South Side of Chicago. It is the home of DePaul University’s men’s and women’s basketball teams and a large events space for McCormick Place, the country’s largest convention center. The event center is part of a redevelopment plan to transform the surrounding neighborhood into a vibrant entertainment district with new dining and entertainment venues, hotels, and streetscapes.

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

The event center’s main design feature is an inventive roof that swells upward over the arena seating, recalling some of Chicago’s great public rooms like Adler and Sullivan’s Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University, the Navy Pier Grand Ballroom, and Union Station. The arching roof is stepped, creating an evocative series of eyebrows. At night, when they glow with light, the shapes produce a distinctive pattern that is visible from the Loop, Chicago’s central business district. Within the arena, the roof’s structure is exposed, making the steel trusses that hold it aloft an expressive part of the design. As a result, the Wintrust Arena is part of the Chicago tradition of lyrical structures—engineering raised to the level of art.

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

While the building’s design is contemporary and unique, it grows from a careful study of the adjacent city neighborhoods. Located at the boundary of the pedestrian-scale Prairie Avenue District and the larger-scale convention center campus, the event center is designed to create a transition between the two. The upward-swelling roof allows the eaves to be lower, near the height of the surrounding buildings. Additionally, medium-scale, metal-clad pavilions are located intermittently around the building, mediating the change in scale and housing many of the event center’s support spaces, like vertical circulation, concessions, and restrooms. This helps with the urban expression of the building and makes for an especially spacious arena.

Between the metal pavilions, tall glass curtain walls make the activity within the building visible to the street, creating a sense of inclusion to the passerby. Arena seating parts at the southwest corner, offering a glimpse of the events inside, as well as the Demon Deck—a cantilevered section of seats reserved for student fans of the DePaul Blue Demons.

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

The 10,600-seat arena is at street level, putting the activity of the concourse circulation and grand stair adjacent to the sidewalks. Some of the event center’s amenities are accessible directly from the street. Support spaces such as loading docks, mechanical spaces, backstage areas, and locker rooms are discreetly placed. However, retail and concessions are at street level—accessible and transparent—contributing to the life of the neighborhood.

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

Image Courtesy © Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects

Tags: Illinois, USA

Categories: Event space, Multipurpose Hall, Performing Arts Center, Theater

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