Architect Peter Eisenman '54 has been honored by Popular Science magazine as an innovator for his radical design of the new University of Phoenix Stadium, the home of the National Football League's Arizona Cardinals.

The $455 million multipurpose stadium in Glendale, Ariz., features two firsts for North American sports stadiums: a fully retractable grass field and an inclined retractable roof that generates power as it opens. The 2.2-acre playing field is mounted on a steel tray on wheels and can be moved outside of the stadium in less than an hour, allowing for a variety of uses. Eisenman also designed the roof trusses and interior walkways to ensure that fans have an unobstructed view of the field, even from the concourse and upper rows.

Eisenman, a longtime football fan and New York Giants season ticket holder, started design work on the Arizona stadium project in 1997. The stadium, which opened in August and will host Super Bowl XLII in February 2008, also was named the top NFL stadium in a recent Street and Smith sports industry survey. For more information on the structure, see http://azcardinals.com/stadium.