After 1908, the next Olympic meeting was held in Stockholm, and the stadium erected by Sweden may be seen in the picture. It is also of a more permanent character than that at Shepherd's Bush; and though its cost (before the war) was nothing like that entailed at Wembley, it preserves all the essential features of Lon don's Olympic building at Shepherd's Bush and combines with them certain typical and pleasing characteristics of Scandinavian architecture. The stadium built by France at Colombes for the games of 1924 is a strictly practical design, with arenas for lawn tennis, football and other games close beside it. The Amsterdam stadium was built for the games of 1928. (T. A. C.) Athletics have come to form such an essential part of the curricula of modern universities that a general plan for these institutions can hardly be considered complete until suitable architectural provision has been made for the athletic activities. The enormously increasing public interest in such games as f oot ball, baseball and track and field sports has given rise to a definite architectural problem which has found its most notable solutions in the United States. In America the stadia, corn prising the field for games and seats for spectators, have grown steadily both in size and number, so that where there were only five of importance in 1913 there are now more than 3o. Inde pendently of the universities, several cities, recognizing the value of physical culture in a community, have provided stadia of great size, such as the Municipal stadium of Philadelphia, with its per manent seating capacity of 125,00o persons, the Los Angeles stadium, and the Chicago stadium with a permanent seating capac ity of 125,000, capable of large increase.
Architecturally, the problem of the stadium is governed by the requirements of the sports practised within its walls. Certain stadia, for instance, are designed for one sport only, such as football (e.g., Yale Bowl, stadium of the University of Michigan, etc.), and the baseball parks found throughout the United States; others for two sports, such as football and track racing, in which case the football field is surrounded by a quarter mile track provided with a straightaway for the dashes (e.g., those at Har vard and Ohio State universities and at Pasadena). Others are designed for three sports ; viz., f ootball, baseball and track racing (e.g., universities of Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, etc.) ; this com
bination is difficult, owing to the wide difference between the shape of the football field and that of the baseball diamond, for if the seats for the spectators are placed close enough to the grid iron the arrangement will not accommodate the diamond.
The general shape of the stadium has been subject to much experiment and varies widely. Starting with the arrangement of two stands lying parallel to the side-lines of the football field, it has taken, successively, the U-shape, as in the stadia at Harvard and the universities of Pennsylvania and Kansas; the horse-shoe shape, as at Ohio State university ; the ellipse of the old Roman amphitheatre, as in the Yale Bowl and at the University of Pitts burgh ; and finally a rectangular shape with rounded corners. The last two types are suitable only for football. In several recent instances the early type of the two opposite spectators' stands has been revived, but it is so arranged that the larger number of seats are massed at the centres of the sidelines, on the theory that it is more important for the spectator to command an equal view of the goal lines than to be near the level of the field. In this case, the stands take the form of a crescent, as at Cornell university, or of a trapezoid, as at Brown university, with about three times as many seats in the centre as at the ends.
In elevation the forms of stadia vary even more ; they range from an excavation in the ground, with the playing field below the level of the surrounding land, as at Yale and the University of Michigan, through the semi-buried type, such as the Philadelphia Municipal stadium, to a structure above ground enclosing a play ing field at the ordinary level, as at Harvard and Princeton uni versities. This last type of construction, sometimes in two decks, as at the universities of Pennsylvania and Illinois and at the Ohio State university, is usually of reinforced concrete, with the double decks of steel. The design of the outer walls adopts suit able simplicity and is usually developed as a series of arcades, the concrete being sometimes faced with brick. The interest excited by the international tennis matches has necessitated the con struction of stadia of a similar type, enclosing three courts (West Side tennis club, Forest Hills, N.Y.).
See also AMPHITHEATRE. (P. P. CR.)