United Sculpture at Allianz Field
Sitting equidistant between the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the UNITED sculpture forms a bridge that unites the two cities and their communities around a love of sport.
The Challenge
The design team was challenged to find a meaningful way to honor a special group of season ticket members for Minnesota United FC’s inaugural 2017 MLS season. These fans, called the Itasca Society, were the true believers who came together to support the club in their first dramatic year. The sculpture is permanently inscribed with the names of all 4,058 inaugural season ticket account holders and creates the ultimate Instagram moment for Loons Fans.
From afar the letters appear smooth, the texture on the faces becoming apparent on approach. Within 16-20’ the texture is recognizable as names, and individual names are legible within 12’.
Tiffany Daniels, Jemma Radick
Names are listed alphabetically by last name across the sculpture. Visitors delight in finding their own names and names of friends – and sharing out the experience through social media.
Tiffany Daniels, Jemma Radick
Design + Execution
The team worked collaboratively with the architects and site designer to create a public installation that was cohesive in scale and design to the site and the stadium. Sight lines were carefully studied to ensure maximum visibility for both highway and city street vehicular traffic, while providing a compelling human scale experience up close and personal for social media sharing. The design team carefully considered every detail from materiality and lighting to plantings, holding fast to the design intent and working collaboratively with their build partners to deliver a beautiful end product for the client.
Each of the 4,058 names was waterjet cut into the aluminum panels. Waterjet was selected during prototyping, after discovering that the heat from laser cutting would warp the aluminum panels.
Tiffany Daniels, Jemma Radick
Project Details
This sculpture marries a strong message to great design. The overly large sculptural typography works well together with the smaller depictions of the names turning this into a simple but beautiful statement.
‘United’ is a beautiful word and ideal, and putting it in front of the building within the landscape at a huge scale is an incredibly bold and powerful gesture. Visually, the scale feels just right in relation to the building. The typographic waterjet-cut names add a layer of nuance and sophistication.
Design Team
Jemma Radick (lead experiential designer)
Sara Garrison (graphic layout/typography)
Leo Mangimelli (detailing/engineering)
Kobi Bradley (site design)
Justin Cox (site design)
Collaborators
Jones Sign Company (fabricator)
ME Engineers (lighting)
Mortenson Construction
Photo Credits
Tiffany Daniels, Minnesota United FC (photography)
Jemma Radick (photography)
Open Date
April 2019