stitute of Architects Press, 1990. Forty-five articles
reprinted fromArchitecturemagazine provide a
comprehensive and lavishly illustrated look at
major buildings of the 1980’s. Floor plans and
building plans are included. The book concludes
with a dozen essays on the decade by architects,
architectural historians, and critics.
Diamonstein, Barbaralee.American Architecture Now
II. New York: Rizzoli, 1985. Preservationist and
writer Diamonstein interviews twenty-nine prac-
ticing American architects from 1982 through
1984.
Handlin, David P.American Architecture. 2d ed. New
York: Thames & Hudson, 2004. A brief but thor-
ough survey of U.S. architecture. Well illustrated
with photographs and plans. Index and bibliog-
raphy.
Kalman, Harold.A Concise Histor y of Canadian Archi-
tecture. Canada: Oxford University Press Canada,
- An extensive treatise on Canadian architec-
ture, beginning with information on the struc-
tures of the First Nations peoples prior to Euro-
pean settlement. Notes, bibliography, glossary,
index of buildings, and general index.
Kidder, Tracy.House. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, - Kidder is known for writing nonfiction that
reads like a novel. He brings the reader into the
lives of the clients, the architect, and other play-
ers in the building of a couple’s dream home. Al-
though not specific to architectural trends in the
1980’s, this book gives insight into the struggles of
an architect designing a single-family dwelling.
Roth, Leland M.American Architecture: A Histor y.
Cambridge, Mass.: Westview Press, 2000. A com-
prehensive survey of architecture in the United
States. Includes discussions on urban planning is-
sues, Native American buildings, and vernacular
architecture. Glossary and detailed index.
Wolfe, Tom.From Bauhaus to Our House. New York:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1981. Both architec-
tural and social criticism, Wolfe’s book gives in-
sight into the modernist tenets that led to the
massive monoliths of the 1970’s and the post-
modern reaction that continued into the 1980’s.
Irene Struthers Rush
See also CAD/CAM technology; Deconstructivist
architecture; Environmental movement; Gehry,
Frank; SkyDome; Vietnam Veterans Memorial; Xan-
adu Houses.
Arena Football League
Definition Professional sports league
Date Began in 1987
Arena football is a version of the game that is played in-
doors, on a fifty-yard-long playing field, in order to increase
its tempo and scores. The modest success of the Arena Foot-
ball League established that a fan base existed that was ea-
ger to watch football twelve months a year.
The Arena Football League (AFL) was designed to
capitalize on the success of professional indoor soc-
cer in the United States during the 1980’s. Orga-
nizers believed that if they could duplicate the torrid
pace and high-scoring action of indoor soccer in a
football game, they could attract fans of the National
Football League (NFL) and of National Collegiate
Athletic Association (NCAA) football during those
leagues’ off-seasons.
The launch of the new league was delayed by the
short-lived United States Football League (USFL),
but the initial four teams of the AFL began to play in- The teams were located in Denver, Pittsburgh,
Chicago, and Washington. Pittsburgh won the
league’s first championship, playing its games be-
fore substantial crowds. Based on the modest success
of the first season, the league embarked on an ambi-
tious expansion program in 1988. This expansion es-
tablished a nomadic pattern for many of the league’s
franchises: Over the next twenty years, forty-five
American cities would be home to AFL teams, often
for just a single season.
Despite this constant franchise relocation, the
league benefited from its emergence at a time that
several cable television channels, especially the
fledgling ESPN network, had an urgent need to fill
their schedules with sports programming. Later,
ESPN would rely on major college and professional
sports, but in the early years the AFL provided just
the sort of inexpensive programming that ESPN
needed at the time.
By the 1980’s, the NFL was an entirely corporate
operation, presenting a slick sports package over-
seen by billionaire owners. It featured millionaire
players, many of whom saw stardom as an entitle-
ment. The AFL marketed itself in a way designed to
capitalize on its shoestring budget and underdog
image. The league’s players were too small to play in
the NFL or came from small colleges that NFL scouts
ignored. They played for the love of the game, for
The Eighties in America Arena Football League 67