After my visit I mentioned to my friend Nick that the Veterans Memorial Coliseum was the main concert venue for the entire city for decades, scene of many much-better-in-foggy retrospect rock concerts like the Doors. During the 1970 season alone this hall saw Stephen Stills and Crazyhorse, Three Dog Night (twice), Sly and the Family Stone, James Brown, Iron Butterfly, Janis Joplin, Elvis Presley, Jethro Tull and Santana.

And its the former home of a lot of teams (the Phoenix Inferno left in 1983, the Phoenix Suns left in 1992, the Arizona Thunder of the World Indoor Soccer League folded in 2000, the Phoenix Blisters, the Sundogs, the Bubbling Brown Skincancers, gone, all moved on or defunct, all gone) and now is the home of NO team.

Nick knew all that already. He grew up here. It's the Arizona State Fair organization that maintains the Coliseum now. That's the big money-making event every autumn. When asked, my patient State Fair tour guide gave forth a game marketing-oriented answer, three sentences about renting the old barn out on weekends. And they've recently fixed the roof, that's a good sign.

But it feels half-abandoned. The online calendar of events is empty for December and January (maybe that's just a web thing), and that's the busy season. Now it's always off-season at the Coliseum and I worry about things being torn down.

Nick says, "I wouldn't worry too much -- land prices aren't that high on that side of town." Oh, yeah. Less pressure. Check.

My smart and brave and patient wife Darlene also grew up here -- in Phoenix, not the Coliseum -- and this old barn doesn't have much glamour for her. She associates these hallways with noisy thick smelly crowds, with being jostled and separated from her friends.

These empty hallways, though, they're beautiful. I hadn't known those square panels were translucent, and the tall-short rhythm of the building gives you a real sense of progression. You want to go around the corner. They're tall on the north and south ends, by the way, and short on the east and west.

The credited architects here are Lescher and Mahoney (who were basically the house architects for the city of Phoenix for long decades, their first commissions in the late 1910s), Place and Place (father and son team of Roy Place and Lew Place, did most of their work in Tucson), and Associated State Capitol Architects. Who is that? That's another name for Lew Place and Les Mahoney. To quote from Lew Place's memoirs, just as a gossipy sidebar:

"That was the State Capitol Architects. They wanted a new State Capitol and Legislative wings. They commissioned four different architectural firms to spread out the work. Each one worked together as one office. They were Edward Varney, Bert Green, Les Mahoney and myself. We decided to let Mahoney's office do the drafting and the details and we would consult with him all the time... The committee in charge of the building wasn't going to make any decisions until (Governor Ernest) McFarland made up his mind. About a year went by like that. We furnished the governor, McFarland, with perspectives and preliminary drawings and he turned them down on the basis that our drawings of the state capitol didn't show a dome. We tried, unsuccessfully, to explain to him that the building wasn't particularly the kind that esthetically would take a dome because it was 20 stories high.

"That was the basic administration building with the House of Representatives wing on the north and the Senate wing on the south. McFarland sad that the height didn't make any difference. We'd have to change to something with a dome on it, because it was Mrs. McFarland's hobby and she had written a book on state capitol domes. We got back to the office and we were standing around the fellow who worked the perspectives on it said, 'What are we doing to do?' There was some conversation about having to start all over and not getting paid for it."

"I told them that I wasn't going to quit and Les said that he wasn't either. Anyway, it ended up with Les Mahoney and myself. We did the Senate and House wings, but they never did build that tall tower. They built an administration building behind the old capitol. Varney did that I think, because Varney made the remark when he left that if this thing gets started, he wanted his share.

"Les and I weren't called in on the new administration building behind the old capitol. I called Varney and said, 'Don't forget to send us our share of the fee on that' and Varney just about flipped."

That helps explain why the Arizona State Capitol is so messed up, and gives a little insight into the relationship of all these guys. Okay, so anyway, back to the Coliseum. Lew Place's exact contribution to this design is unknown and deserves a little more attention. It's a building of surprising simplicity in true modernist spirit.

Next question: are those triangular struts functional in some way? Yeah, I think so. They must provide supporting tension for the floating roof. The consulting structural engineer on this job was the great T.Y. Lin. There's a page with several historical construction photographs here (the Coliseum once had a reflecting pool), and this quote:

The building has circular shape with 112 m diameter. The edge ring, which is supported by steel columns, has 30.5 m maximum height and 19.2 m minimum height. The cable network is a square mesh with hyperbolic paraboloid shape. The roof is made with reinforced concrete panels.

But to be positive, most of the work remains, in fairly good shape, and some of it is amazing. A lot of work. On the south side there's a three-panel sort-of triangular mural on a Native sports theme above the concession stand, a weird shape presumably to meet some interior feature that's gone. Check out the red ball embedded in the ceiling.

This mural is flanked by two square Native abstract designs, not visible here. Along the same lines, two big square-panel abstract Native designs stand along the south entrance doors (one is visible in photo). Some of the columns carry Native designs too.

The north side is the crazy mariachi-circus-rodeo-ballet side, a similar triangular mural. Great and amusing. This one is also flanked by two square designs, a bronc rider and a bull rider, and two more big panels by the entry doors. There's the flowing-hair girl again to the right.

So... Natives on the south, anglos on the north, games, sports, that's the thing.

Those two big panels by the entrance are MUCH more interesting than their abstract southern counterparts. One is a visual statement about how anglo and Native women are equally attractive I guess....

The final "Miss Rodeo" panel is the really good one IMHO. Miss Rodeo is surrounded by a faceted halo of rodeo activities and Coze's geometric treatment of horses here is like nothing else I've ever seen before.