NY Times architecture critic doesn't much care for Jonestown

Architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, writing in today's New York Times, has a few bones to pick with the Cowboys grand new stadium out in Arlington. For one thing, he writes:

"Cowboys Stadium suffers from its own form of nostalgia: its enormous retractable roof, acres of parking and cavernous interiors are straight out of Eisenhower’s America, with its embrace of car culture and a grandiose, bigger-is-better mentality. The result is a somewhat crude reworking of old ideas, one that looks especially unoriginal when compared with the sophisticated and often dazzling stadiums that have been built in Europe and the Far East over the last few years. Worse for fans, its lounges and concourses are so sprawling that I suspect more than a few spectators will get lost and miss the second-half kickoff."

For another: "Walk around to either side of the structure and you’re confronted with what looks like a conventional suburban office park. ... A few lonely trees only draw attention to the absolute joylessness of the scene."

He concluded: "As it turns out, the biggest controversy so far about the stadium has to do with its supersize scale. The four-sided video board over the field is so big, and hangs so low, that a Tennessee punter hit it during a preseason game. It’s a nice irony that for all the space, there may not be enough room at Cowboys Stadium to play a game."

So there's that.