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TD Garden, or “The Garden,” as it’s often called, is one of the most iconic venues in sports, partly due to a rich history of championship dynasties, success across multiple sports, and the legendary parquet red oak basketball floor. This parquet floor is one of the most recognizable wood floors in the world, but what makes it so special?
Photo: Bleacher Report
In terms of wood properties, red oak is a strong, bold, and durable hardwood–ranking midway on the Janka hardness scale (1,290 lbf pounds-force). The Janka hardness scale is the industry standard for measuring how resistant wood is to denting and wear by testing the force required to embed a 0.444-inch steel ball halfway into a wood sample. The scale ranks woods between 0-4000, where 0 is the softest and 4000 is the hardest. What also sets red oak wood apart is its large pores that provide an open grain structure, which can increase workability during the installation of specialized designs and intricate patterns, like in parquet. The medium hardness level combined with an open grain structure provides a good balance between workability and durability that is well suited for parquet design projects.
Parquet design gained traction and notoriety in France during the late 1600s as a lower-maintenance alternative to the marble floors in the Palace of Versailles. Soon, the European parquet became a symbol of wealth, status, and sophistication and was installed in many public buildings. The term “parquet” derives from the French word parquetry, meaning “a small compartment.” In the 19th and early 20th centuries, parquet flooring took hold in the U.S. due to its unique aesthetic and practical advantages, such as increased durability by evenly distributing stress along the interlocking patterns and creative utilization opportunities with incongruous or low-value wood pieces. Parquet floors were originally made with small wood scraps, allowing the craftsmen to utilize irregularly shaped pieces of wood. This flooring design continued to slowly gain popularity until the Boston Celtics famously installed a parquet floor in 1946 at the Boston Garden.
Between the 1950s and 1960s, the Boston Celtics dynasty reined in the NBA, where the team won 11 championships in 13 seasons, one of the most remarkable accomplishments in sports history. During this time, “the floor was as much a part of the Celtics as the players themselves…” said former coach Red Auerbach, and “it wasn’t just a basketball court; it was a part of the Celtics’ mystique.”
The original Celtic parquet floor was crafted from scrap pieces of northern Tennessee oak—a resourceful and visionary solution born out of the material shortages caused by World War II. At the time, the limited supply of professionally cut wood for sports floors forced the team to think creatively. They opted for a geometric parquet configuration because they lacked access to the long wooden boards required for traditional flooring styles.
This decision to use luxury European-inspired parquet proved to be a perfect choice. It maximized yield, minimized costs, and established a distinctive visual style that not only addressed practical challenges but also set the tone for the Celtics’ iconic identity and a decade of success.
Throughout the early years, the team personified the wood floor, imposing magical or supernatural qualities that scared opponents and empowered the team to tap into and use toward victory. “The floor was a part of all [the Celtics’ success]… It watched over the greatest sports team dynasty that ever was and probably ever will be,” said Bob Cousy in reflection as the team worked to refurbish the original floor in the 90s. However, part of what made the floor notorious was its imperfections. Besides a wood floor with angel-like capabilities of guidance and protection, “the floor was unique because it looked like no other floor,” Bill Russel told the New York Times in 2000. He went on to say, “What was most significant about the floor was that teams found it distracting…It was part of our legend...”
The distraction Bill references was a result of the early quirks of traditional parquetry, consisting of frequent variations in wood lengths, jagged edges, splinters, and dead spots. Deadspots on a basketball court are every ball handler’s nightmare—a sudden, unexpected moment when the ball fails to bounce as it should, often causing it to rebound irregularly or skid away uncontrollably. Modern parquetry has developed new styles, techniques, and materials to advance and innovate beyond inconsistencies and imperfections.
After 16 championships, the Celtics changed arenas at the end of 1995 and planned to install a new floor. When the Celtics moved to the TD Garden, the team insisted that aspects of the original parquet floor were preserved and incorporated into the new design, recalled long-term Connor Sports employee Jason Gasperich. The new flooring was designed by Connor Sports, which weaved the old with the new, using northern Tennessee red oak intermixed with the original planks to craft the 5x5 square panels of the floor. Even today, 78 years later, some of the original flooring planks are still intentionally used in the Celtics’ floor–a testament to the durability and longevity of wood as a material and the Celtics’ loyalty to tradition and personification of the floor.
While the Celtics’ story with red oak is unique, within the NBA, a league that specifies the use of maple floors as the premier flooring choice, the story is inspiring. It inspires a connection with nature, a bond between us and the natural resources we utilize for things we love; it inspires us to consider the value of tradition and heritage; it inspires the next designer to find a creative way to use hardwood; and it inspires the birth of a trendsetter to utilize low-value lumber in a modern, sustainable way, that is so impactful it receives a name of its own–just like the Boston square.