“Cool” is one of those words that has been so overused to be almost meaningless. So when a television show comes along called Cool Spaces!—with an exclamation point no less!—you’d be excused for any apprehension. But the program, a four-part series that focuses on the best new architecture in the U.S. and premieres on PBS affiliates across the country early this month, is considerably better than its title.
The goal of the show, says architect/teacher/host Stephen Chung, is to “deconstruct the world of architecture.” To do that, each episode of Cool Spaces! is devoted to a theme and explores three new buildings that fit that theme. The first episode is centered on performance spaces and takes viewers deep inside AT&T Stadium, the home of the Dallas Cowboys in Arlington, Texas, designed by HKS; the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City, Missouri, designed by Safdie Architects; and Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, designed by SHoP. (Future episodes focus on libraries, art spaces, and healing spaces.) Each building gets between 15 and 20 minutes of screen time—the episode itself is 58 minutes—and Chung does his best to hit the high notes at each facility: AT&T’s epic single-span roof structure, the longest in the world, for example, or how SHoP wedged a world-class professional sports facility into a narrow, triangular parcel of land in the middle of downtown Brooklyn.
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