The Biggest Dome

"Let each new temple, nobler than the last," wrote Oliver Wendell Holmes, "shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast!" Poet Holmes was referring to mansions of the soul, but he might well have been prophesying today's pharaonic era of sports-stadium construction, in which city after city vies to encapsulate its populace in ever nobler temples and vaster domes.

This week, a decade after Houston opened its Astrodome and pronounced it the Eighth Wonder of the World, New Orleans will stage the "grand opening" of its 97,365-capacity Louisiana Superdome, which could absorb the 66,000-seat Astrodome with room to spare. Last week Pontiac, Mich., opened its 80,400-seat, $55.7 million Metropolitan Stadium, 25 miles northwest of Detroit, with an exhibition football game between the Detroit Lions and the Kansas City Chiefs. Seattle hopes to complete the dome on the 60,000-seat, $60 million King County Stadium next year "in time for the baseball season"--even though Seattle does not as yet have a dome-town baseball team. The most controversial of all is the 27-story-high Superdome, which resembles a giant flying saucer set down on 52 acres of downtown New Orleans. Since 1966, when construction was approved by the Louisiana legislature, the cost of the dome has ballooned from $35 million to $163 million--about 15 times the price of Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase.

The Superdome--the largest room ever built for human use--was plagued by engineering booboos (the foundations had to be rebuilt), planning oversights (costly changes had to be made because spectators in 2,500 of the seats in the original layout would have been unable to see the four main scoreboards) and two dozen lawsuits aimed at stopping construction altogether. The windowless building, sheathed in gold, anodized aluminum, boasts 75,000 sq. yds. of carpeting and contains 9,000 tons of computerized air conditioning and heating equipment; its energy costs are estimated at $1,752,000 a year. Its AstroTurf surface is known fondly as Mardi Grass.

Biggest Pimple. The Superdome has been dubbed by its detractors "the world's biggest pimple" and "the domedest thing y'ever saw." Cynics set store by the fact that the fast-food company that will operate 40 hot-dog stands in the Superdome calls its piece de resistance, a sausage-and-French-bread sandwich, "Pig in a Poke"--a sobriquet that many seem to think fits the Superdome itself. Others, like Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards, prefer to think of it as "the greatest structure of its kind ever envisioned by mankind." One of its throatiest boosters has been New Orleans Mayor Moon Landrieu, a canny politician who calls the edifice "an exercise in optimism," and doubtless would like to see it called the Moondome.

Voters and promoters from coast to coast agree overwhelmingly that domes are desirable. They not only attract big-time professional sports, thus pleasing fans and warming civic egos, but also enrich city life by bringing in circuses, national conventions, concert spectaculars and other extravaganzas that in an open stadium would be vulnerable to inclement weather. Thus, says the Superdome's executive director, Bernard Levy, the benefits of a complete dome far outweigh the costs, controversies and headaches involved in building it. In other words, according to a sign posted in his office: "When you're up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember that the original object was to drain the swamp."

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