The Football Field of Time

People like big, record-setting numbers, whether they’re sports records, speed records, or crazy daredevil records. We architects and engineers are no different; we also like big numbers: the tallest towers, the longest bridge spans, the largest buildings. And our big numbers are often really big. Take, for example, the record holders for largest building (based on usable area). In 1930, the Merchandise Mart in Chicago set the record with 4,000,000 SF, surpassed in 1943 by the Pentagon with 6,600,000 SF. Since then, at least 13 buildings, most in this millennium, have been built with larger areas, including (to pick four of the top 13)

      #12 The Palazzo Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas (6,948,980 SF)

#6 Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital International Airport (10,610,000 SF)

#3 Abraj Al Bait Towers in Mecca (16,961,930 SF)

#1 New Century Global Center in Chengdu (18,900,000 SF) [1]

If you’re like me, you may have trouble digesting such big numbers. When we see that many digits in a number, we lose touch with the physicality of it. Fortunately, we (in the U.S., at least) have a unit of measure other than square feet we can use for large areas: the football field [2]. A football field is one of the largest areas (57,600 SF, including end zones) for which most Americans—even people like me, who know almost nothing about the game—have a physical grasp [3]. So here are the areas of the above buildings, in football fields (FF):

Merchandise Mart (69 FF)

The Pentagon (115 FF)

The Palazzo Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas (121 FF)

Terminal 3 at Beijing Capital International Airport (184 FF)         

Abraj Al Bait Towers in Mecca (294 FF)

New Century Global Center in Chengdu (328 FF)

Even these football field numbers are big, but we can at least picture what that many football fields would look like. Now we know, at a gut level, how big these buildings are.

Humans aren’t equipped to grasp huge numbers way beyond our everyday experiences. To understand such large numbers on a physical level, we need to compare them to tangible, conceptually knowable things. Recognizing that, writers often use, for example, football fields for big areas, Olympic-size swimming pools for big volumes, and Hiroshima atomic bombs for big explosions (natural or man-made). That works for areas, distances, and explosions, but what about time? Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a similarly tangible unit to measure time, one that gives people (and I’m thinking here mostly of us architects and engineers) a physical understanding of long periods of time? Centuries and millennia are too long; it’s hard for people to grasp periods of time longer than their own lifetimes. Decades are too short; besides, I don’t know about you, but the older I get, the shorter the decades seem to last. We need a unit of time that architects and engineers can physically relate to. What we need is the football field of time.

Let me introduce the arch-life (and as long as I’m inventing things, let me also invent a symbol: ɑɭ). An arch-life is equal to forty years, or roughly the professional life of the average architect, assuming the average architect gets licensed at around twenty-five to thirty years old, and retires by around sixty-five to seventy years old. (And lest you think I’m just making these numbers up, let me assure you that I spent literally minutes of fruitless research in pursuit of hard data. Then I made them up. But forty years feels about right, and it’s a nice round number.)

So let’s look back in time, not by years, decades, or centuries, but by arch-lives:

One arch-life (1 ɑɭ) ago …

In 1976, the Washington, D.C. Metro opened; Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer; construction of Toronto’s CCN Tower, the world’s tallest free-standing structure, was completed; the game show Family Feud debuted; “Bohemian Rhapsody” achieved gold record status; Henry Aaron hit his final home run; Alvar Aalto and Mao Zedong died; U2 was formed; Jimmy Carter was elected U.S. president; Rocky and Taxi Driver were released; George Lucas began filming Star Wars in Tunisia; and the Band performed their farewell concert.

Two arch-lives (2 ɑɭ ) ago …

In 1936, Hoover Dam, the Johnson Wax Headquarters, the Oakland Bay Bridge, the Casa del Fascio, and the main span of the Golden Gate Bridge were completed; construction of Fallingwater began; Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics; the first five players (Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson, and Walter Johnson) were inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame; Volkswagens were introduced in Germany; Joe DiMaggio played his first major league game; Alan Turing submitted the paper that established the theoretical basis for modern computers; RMS Queen Mary completed its maiden voyage; a publisher accepted The Hobbit (and published it the following year); Chaplin’s Modern Times was released; Franklin Roosevelt was re-elected U.S. president; and Edward VIII abdicated as king of Great Britain.

Three arch-lives (3 ɑɭ ) ago …

In 1896, the first modern Olympics were held in Athens; the discovery of X-rays was announced; the opera La Boheme premiered; Tootsie Roll candy was introduced; in New York City, chop suey was invented and the first car accident happened; Marconi applied for a patent for his invention of radio; dial telephones were patented; Queen Victoria became the longest reigning British monarch; William McKinley was elected U.S. president; the Lumiere brothers projected their films in London; and Bannister Fletcher’s A History of Architecture and H.G. Wells’s third novel, The Island of Doctor Moreau, were published.

Four arch-lives (4 ɑɭ ) ago …

In 1856, the Republican Party had its first national convention in Philadelphia; the bell for Big Ben was cast; James Buchanan was elected U.S. president; George-Eugène Haussmann’s renovation of Paris was underway; and Louis Sullivan and Hendrik Berlage were born. The AIA was founded the following year.

Five arch-lives (5 ɑɭ ) ago …

In 1816, the world experienced “the year without summer” following the eruption of Mount Tambora; Rossini's Barber of Seville premiered in Rome; James Monroe was elected U.S. president; Mary Shelly began writing Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus; and Thomas Jefferson was redesigning Monticello.

Six arch-lives (6 ɑɭ ) ago …

In 1776, I know something important happened, but what was it? … It’ll come to me. … Ah, I remember: the Mission Delores was founded in San Francisco, Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations was published, and Thomas Jefferson was redesigning Monticello.

Now let’s go even further back in time:

Ten arch-lives (10 ɑɭ ) ago, in 1616, Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare died.

Twenty arch-lives (20 ɑɭ ) ago, 1216, was one year after the Magna Carta was signed.

Thirty arch-lives (30 ɑɭ ) ago, 816, was two years after Charlemagne’s death .

Forty arch-lives (40 ɑɭ ) ago, 416, was six years after the Goths sacked Rome and the end of the Western Roman Empire.

And finally, 50 arch-lives (50 ɑɭ ) ago, 16, was two years after Augustus, the first Roman emperor, died.

Let’s stop now and consider what this means. Only five arch-lives separate us from Thomas Jefferson, only 10 separate us from Shakespeare, 20 from the Magna Carta, and 30 from Charlemagne. Just 50 ɑɭ, or fifty professional lifetimes, separate us from the time of Augustus. What used to be remote history now becomes something tangible, something not so remote. By thinking in terms of arch-lives—the football fields of time—we gain a stronger connection to our past and our history.

Footnotes:

[1] For the full list, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_buildings.

[2] In the rest of the world, “football” (i.e., what Americans call soccer) has typical playing field dimensions of 105 by 68 meters (344 feet x 223 feet) or 76,712 SF, around 33% larger than American football fields.

[3] Yes, the imperial system has acres, but most people don’t have the same gut-level feeling for acres as they do for football fields. Also, for all these areas I’ve used square feet rather than square meters because, even though the metric system is legally the “preferred system of weights and measures” in the U.S. (per the 1988 Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act), most Americans, including architects, have a hard time grasping the physicality of square meters.