Fortune loves the arena, but gets transparency wrong; Jay-Z named #50 in list of top business people of 2012

From Joshua Cooper Ramo in Fortune, Globalism goes backward:

In our age we can actually see the inside pushing to the fore. Consider the design of the Barclays Center in Brooklyn; critics call it the most important new building in the U.S. this year. It was conceived around a revolutionary inside-to-out gambit, with huge windows and screens that let passersby see who is singing, dunking, or practicing inside. The building marks a generational lurch as much as a structural one: Developer Bruce Ratner craftily swapped a too expensive concept by Frank Gehry, whose elegant and impenetrable façades were perhaps the best examples of the "outside is the new outside" revolution of 20 years ago, for one by the post-boomer collective firm SHoP. In the process, almost by accident, he built what may be the first great building of the Inside Age.

My comment:

Regarding the Barclays Center, there's no "generational lurch." Gehry's own design guidelines required transparency of the facade.
Rest assured, you can barely see the scoreboard, much less see inside.
That said, those walking around the arena's upper floors can see outside.
The key to SHoP's design was not trading an impenetrable facade for transparency, but rather grafting a pre-rusted metal skin on a somewhat pedestrian arena design (think Conseco Fieldhouse) by Ellerbe Becket.

About Jay-Z

In the same issue, Fortune names Shawn Carter (Jay-Z) 50th in a list of top business people of 2012:

The man known as Jay-z owns less than 1% of the Brooklyn Nets (Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov owns 80% of the basketball team), but Carter is the face of the team, and by extension, of his home borough. The rapper put in a mere $1 million into the initial partnership, but by all accounts was deeply involved in every aspect of the Nets' Brooklyn launch, including elements of its home stadium, the Barclays Center. The Nets are the latest addition to a business empire that includes New York's storied 40/40 Club and Roc-A-Fella Records. (He sold his clothing line, Rocawear, to Iconix in 2007 for $204 million.) Jay-Z the rapper may be winding down his career, but Shawn Carter the businessman is truly heating up after a fiery 2012.

The House that Hova Built or the House that Hova Hyped?