The rejected designs and the ‘big shard of ice’ that stuck for U.S. Bank Stadium (2024)

In the four years since U.S. Bank Stadium opened, it’s been widely lauded as one of the premier sports venues in the country, one that has already successfully hosted a Super Bowl and Final Four. The home of the Minnesota Vikings ranked No. 1 in the NFL in The Athletic’s survey of beat writers.

The transparent roof has been praised for bringing an outdoor feel to indoor games, and the massive northwest doors — the world’s largest pivoting glass ones in the world — have become an attraction on warm days in the fall when they swing open leading to the field.

But it took years to eventually land on the design that was built in 2016. Before that, there were talks of a retractable roof. An ultra-modern, wavy roof was discussed. There were circular, bowl designs.

So as part of The Athletic’s series on architecture in sports this week, we thought it would be fun to chat with Bryan Trubey, the global director of HKS Architecture, the firm that designed U.S. Bank Stadium, and Don Becker, the team’s stadium project executive, about the alternative options for the stadium, how they eventually agreed on the design that was built, and their favorite compliment of U.S. Bank Stadium, which opened four years ago this month.

Brainstorming

Before making an initial pitch to the team and city, Trubey first begins a study of the architecture that is around a would-be stadium. It’s important that the stadium not stick out as an anomaly among the other buildings, Trubey said.

When he designed Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, it meant spending weeks picking out just the right bricks that would blend in with the other downtown buildings.

But in Minneapolis, it meant a chance at a modern stadium.

“The things we noticed that are totally unique to Minneapolis compared to the other major metro areas, is that almost all the civic architecture since the post-war period is modern architecture,” Trubey said. “That’s not the case in any other city.”

That essentially gave Trubey and his firm permission to begin renderings on modern designs for the stadium. They landed on “three or four radically different looking designs,” Trubey said, which were presented to the city’s authority that oversees the stadium and to the Vikings.

Becker, meanwhile, wanted to get a sense of several stadiums, so he flew out on the Vikings’ behalf to visit new stadiums and get ideas for what they liked. He happened to really like the natural light at Lucas Oil Stadium thanks to a wall of windows and retractable roof, which helped put Trubey’s firm on the Vikings’ radar.

Inspiration

The team of designers put together a few pages of images for inspiration on the project. There were pictures of Vikings players in their uniforms and true Vikings. There were Viking longships and Nordic houses and ice-fishing houses. All of it, in some fashion, provided a frame of reference.

That’s why the designers don’t mind when fans approach them and proclaim they know what the stadium was modeled after.

“It’s interesting because I think the biggest compliment for us revolves around the fact that people think it embodies everything Minneapolis,” Trubey said. “People look at it and say, ‘Oh, it’s a Vikings ship.’ Which, of course, it isn’t. It’s very abstract, which is what modern architecture is always about. Or they’ll say, ‘Oh, it’s like a big Vikings longhouse.’ Or they’ll say, ‘Oh, it’s like a big shard of ice.’ All of those are true, aren’t they? It just depends upon the lens with which you’re looking at it.”

It’s funny to look back now, Becker said, and hear about the comparisons to longships because the main focus of those early meetings on design was about snow removal and how it would fall off the roof.

“It was definitely not a ship design,” Becker said. “But you can see now it does have that connotation.”

Other features stand out in hindsight. The stadium was originally built at an angle, Becker said, so that it would offer a view of the downtown skyline from the seats. But an unintended consequence is that the wall of windows at the west now offers impressive sunset and skyline reflections.

“Those reflections weren’t contemplated in the design,” Becker said, “but certainly a benefit of the way the building turned out.”

A retractable roof

One of the initial requests from the Vikings, Trubey said, was for a retractable roof. It would allow for outdoor games during the fall, then a closed dome in the winter.

So Trubey’s team knew they needed to include a rendering for a retractable roof even if they didn’t think it was the best use of money and even if later legislation from the city outlawed such a design.

All of the pitches that the Vikings heard from firms included some form of roofless design. That’s what owners Mark and Zygi Wilf initially wanted.

“We challenged them to come up with something you would portray as open-air concept,” Becker said.

One design that still sticks with Becker was a tall stadium similar to where the Seattle Seahawks play with massive grandstands on either side of the field. But to accommodate the open-air feel, it had a never-been-done, accordion-like roof.

But after seeing the first renderings, Trubey didn’t feel like the retractable roof was the right fit for the project.

“They kind of work on ballparks … because you’re trying to get sun to the field,” Trubey said. “And the ballparks actually feel like open-air venues. Well, at most NFL venues, you’re not trying to get sun to grow the grass, so it would end up being a smaller opening. And then the question is what are you getting for that? Does it really feel like an outdoor venue?”

The mechanics of a retractable roof in the harsh Minnesota winters became problematic. Becker visited the Miami Marlins’ stadium since their retractable roof had to be able to withstand hurricanes. How the roof would handle the winters became a big deterrent for a retractable roof for a franchise that only a few years earlier had watched as the Metrodome’s roof collapsed.

The finished product

While the idea of a retractable roof never moved beyond a few looks at the drawings, it did bring to the forefront the idea of a transparent roof — perhaps U.S. Bank Stadium’s signature feature.

“That unlocked a whole discussion because we wanted to do something unique,” Trubey said. “That launched the whole discussion that the clear roof is the new retractable. That’s something we coined along the way. It just came in a meeting we were having with the authority one time.”

The idea was to provide the feel of an outdoor game that the Vikings initially wanted with the retractable roof. It’s why one of Trubey’s favorite parts of early Vikings games is seeing people wear sunglasses from inside the stadium.

“Goodness, it’s like you’re in the outdoors,” Trubey said. “There were people wearing sunglasses at the Super Bowl if you got there early enough. And it was like two degrees outside.”

Added Becker: “When you see a game on television, you honestly can’t tell it’s indoors.”

As fun as it may be to see the pictures of potential versions of the stadium that’s now an attraction in downtown Minneapolis, Trubey said his team was able to close in on the look of the stadium pretty quickly once the retractable roof was ruled out in favor of a transparent one and the single superframe was added at the top to provide a ridge.

Trubey doesn’t spend much time looking back at those old renderings and wondering what might have been if another avenue were chosen. He’s proud of the way the stadium turned out and of the reviews it’s received since. He still returns to Minneapolis every year and appreciates the architecture throughout.

That’s why his favorite bit of praise comes from those who appreciate that the stadium blends in — as much as a billion-dollar building can, anyway.

“The highest compliment we can be paid,” Trubey said, “is that it reflects their city.”

(Top photo: One of the designs that inspired the final version of U.S. Bank Stadium but didn’t quite stick. All stadium rendering photos courtesy of HKS Architects)

Chad Graff is a staff writer for The Athletic covering the New England Patriots since 2022 after five years on the Minnesota Vikings beat. Graff joined The Athletic in January 2018 after covering a bit of everything for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. He won the Pro Football Writers of America’s 2022 Bob Oates Award for beat writing. He's a New Hampshire native and an adjunct professor of journalism at the University of New Hampshire. Follow Chad on Twitter @ChadGraff