Photo By Dan Burns

Cohesive vision: An example of acclaimed architect Bernard Tschumi's unified design for UC's Varsity Village.

Cincinnati is a sports town. This is undeniable. No matter how hard a small group of city boosters keeps trying to stamp this city as an arts town, it never rings true. Winning or losing, the Reds, the Bengals, the Bearcats and the Musketeers stand as our symbols for thousands of Cincinnatians and millions of Americans.

As someone with little knowledge of sports but a passion for the arts, I was ecstatic to learn that as part of the University of Cincinnati's master plan there would be a confluence of athletics and aesthetics. Where better to pull off this unlikely partnership than on a university campus, where sports reign supreme and the mission is higher education?

The centerpiece of UC's Varsity Village and the new home to all Athletic Department facilities is the Richard E. Lindner Athletics Center. This 236,000-square-foot building is the centralized location for all coaches, student athletes and administrators. The building houses offices, team meeting rooms, study halls, a sports medicine and hydrotherapy suite, locker rooms and a practice gymnasium. Open to the full university is a 335-seat auditorium, a two-level faculty club with restaurant, a University health service suite, and the centralized ticketing office.

The Center was designed by Bernard Tschumi, an internationally acclaimed architect recognized for his innovative solutions to the problem of creating spaces that serve public and private needs. This is accomplished with a dynamic and visually exciting architectural language.

The Lindner Center is shaped like a gigantic, five-story-high boomerang nestled between the football stadium and basketball arena. Its north end leads toward the Campus Recreation Center (designed by Thom Mayne of Morphosis) and its south end connects to an inviting open plaza, practice field and tennis courts.

In keeping with Tschumi's architectural philosophy, the building has no imposing façade, obvious front or back or dominating entrance, but rather a visually strong exterior that grabs your attention from multiple viewpoints. Huge triangles of pre-cast concrete, pierced by similarly shaped triangular windows, are knitted together to form the sweeping curves of the building's exterior. The building rises off its plaza on V-shaped supports that reveal the ground floor, and glass doors at the north and south ends invite you in.

Once inside, you understand why Tschumi is considered a master at uniting the public and private while simultaneously ensuring that the building serves its practical, everyday needs without compromising aesthetics.

This is not a traditional lobby that leads to windowless, cookie-cutter offices and smelly locker rooms. This is an open, light-filled atrium -- a cathedral to UC sports -- that unifies and brings together the athletes, coaches and administrators as they move from one activity to another within the building. It also serves the general student population who use the long atrium as an inviting passageway connecting them to the other side of campus.

A spectacular, floating red staircase, glass elevators and views of the floors above dominate the center of the atrium. In addition, Tschumi's atrium architecture is overlaid with graphic material designed by Eva Maddox, which presents (through photographs, timelines and film) the history of UC sports.

This unique approach to placing a UC sports "museum" that includes a Tschumi-designed, multi-story, floating glass trophy case -- not in a room by itself but in the open atrium -- can be a bit overwhelming. This is especially true as one looks upward and sees the graphic elements ringing several stories.

Also the columns marking each department are not particularly "Tschumi-esque." Nonetheless, the graphics are informative. They add another "public" dimension to this already fabulously successful University building.

On a recent tour of the Lindner Center with Tschumi, we approached several of the athletes and asked them how they liked their new facility. We caught up with the football team as they were entering their below-ground-level meeting room, equipped with every high-tech device imaginable, not to mention comfortable seats designed for their amble frames. Their comments of "awesome" and "fantastic" appeared genuine.

Once we made our way upstairs to the offices that ring the atrium, we invited ourselves into the Track and Field office. Here, we were greeted with similar enthusiasm. One of the coaches was obviously pleased to meet Tschumi and told the architect that others shared his pleasure with the building. That their office looked out on onto the football field, one example of Tschumi's merging of spaces, was particularly appreciated.

As I left this state of the art-of-the-art facility and looked all around me at the other elements of the sports complex, I was struck by the spectacular blending of functionality and aesthetics.

I know that most of the athletes do not and will not know that their everyday space was designed by a highly regarded architect, but I'm certain that by being in his space day in and day out they will develop an affinity for what is a well-designed space. They will leave their years at UC with a great athletic experience and an instinctual sense of how personally impactful great architecture can be. ©