The Golden State Warriors say farewell next week to Oakland’s Oracle Arena, the basketball team’s home since 1966. They depart a venue revered for the memories, championship banners and exultant roar of the past five years.

Here’s another reason to regret the move: The structure is ideal for basketball. Beyond details such as the communal feel of the 19,596 seats around the court, there are layers of deft architecture that intensify the experience without being distracting. Heck, you may not even notice them.

So if you’re lucky enough to be at Friday’s game, here are five aspects of the building worth noting as you wait in line for so-so food. If not, consider this a cheat sheet against which to measure Chase Center when it debuts this fall in San Francisco.

The X’s mark the spot: The Oakland Coliseum complex was conceived in the early 1960s, when extraneous architectural flash was taboo. The design firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill instead gave us a simple circular form with diagonal braces of structural concrete as an outer shell and tall glass walls within — instantly memorable and not gratuitous at all.

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But if the original design was nothing but net — powerful, yet seemingly preordained — the 1996-97 renovation was an aesthetic brick. Not only were 4,571 extra seats packed in, cartoonish portals were added to the exterior at each of the entrances.

“Janky,” as Warriors guard Stephen Curry would say. Even so, the robust serenity of the original design endures in the methodical curve of the X-braces, rooted and functionally regal all at once.

Like a basketball, the arena is round: Basketball is a fluid game, pulsing with energetic ebbs and flows — until the grind of foul shots and timeouts in the last two minutes of close games, that is. How fitting, then, to be in a structure where something as simple as a visit to the team store or a beer vendor offers a constant arc that keeps things moving, punctuated by upper concourse views through those 57-foot high X’s.

Compression and release: No less an architectural impresario than Frank Lloyd Wright proclaimed the virtues of choreographed design sequences that funnel your vision and footsteps so that there’s confinement and then — pow! — expansive drama is revealed.

Which pretty much exactly describes the transition from the curved, cluttered concourses to the straight short hallways — many of them not 5 feet wide — and then the supercharged reveal of the raked bowl, with all its ebullient life.

Eyes are on the action: When the arena was redone in 1996-97, the extra seating sealed off a sublime aspect of the original Skidmore design — a seating dish that scalloped down on two sides to pull in views of the outside world.

Photos showing the original design are gorgeous. Arena as translucent jewel.

But when I’m seated in Roaracle’s now hemmed-in basin, I’ve entered a hermetically sealed world. One so compact that we feel the heat from the fire cannons as the starting lineup is announced. Where the waves of noise stirred by early buckets and late rallies have tsunami-like force. Where the downward thrust of ribbed concrete rafters that form a structural ring above midcourt force you to focus on the game and nothing else.

It’s a trade-off I don’t mind.

The rafters are a muscular wonder: OK, they aren’t really rafters — the concrete ribs that slide down 32 feet from the structure’s outer walls encase thick steel cables that in turn make sure the roof won’t collapse (much appreciated!).

They’re also a defining presence of this one-of-a-kind space.

In the pricier rows near the court, to be sure, the ribbed ceiling functions mainly as a textured backdrop. A cool element in the larger show. Up in the cheap sheets — if nosebleed seats that in the regular season went for $80 a game can be considered “cheap” — the powerful concrete strokes make you feel like part of the action.

Yes, the arena will still be a functioning venue after the Warriors move to their flashy new home across the bay on San Francisco’s waterfront. There will still be concerts (Jonas Brothers! Dec. 12! Get your tickets now!). Arena football might touch down next February.

And, yes, the 1966 building lacks many of the extras expected by Warriors fans who’ve paid a $45,000 “membership fee” for the chance to buy season tickets. For instance, the concourses jammed with food and drink carts can be as stifling as the Toronto Raptors were on Wednesday evening.

“When you’re in the bowl, it’s awesome — all of that is exactly what we want to preserve,” team President Rick Welts said before a playoff game last month. “But when we get to the creature comforts, what people expect from an arena these days, that’s the experience we want to improve.”

Understandably so.

And yet.

We’ve been lucky for the past five years to watch a dynamic dynasty excel within a structure that embodies the virtues of honest and strong, yet elegant architecture. No matter how lavish Chase Center turns out to be, Oakland’s statuesque arena is a hard act to follow.

John King is The San Francisco Chronicle’s urban design critic. Email: jking@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @johnkingsfchron