Forget, for a moment, everything you know about collegiate athletics. Disregard the heated recruiting battles, the rule violation controversies, the NFL draft, and the inexplicable sum of capital involved in what was intended to be an amateur sport. Upon relinquishing these notions of college football, the spirit of pure competition becomes lucid. A fan, or player, or coach is suddenly engrossed in the concept of sport at the purest level. Compelled to develop a setting for their idealistic dream, they likely visualize some derivation of a Roman coliseum, the commonly held cultural symbol of authentic competition. The visual image of a coliseum may have seemed more ordinary to 1903, in the midst of Classical revivals, but there is no doubt the image of uncensored sporting evoked by the coliseums went through architect Louis Johnson?s head, as he designed Harvard Stadium.
The literal history of the stadium is quite remarkable, and associates the emotional experience of the building with the intellectual underpinnings that arouse such awe. A collection of ?firsts? belongs to Harvard, celebrating not only the facility?s tradition, but also the university?s commitment to athletics. It was Harvard that built the first large, permanent arena for collegiate sports ? not a contemporary Division 1 powerhouse that feigns some sort of historic narrative. Not only was it the first permanent venue, it was also the largest reinforced concrete structure in the world at the time it was built, a feat telling of the pride held by the administration when commissioning their new temple to athletics.
?Temple? truly is the most appropriate term when describing Harvard Stadium, not only because of the romantic connotation of worship to the on-field performance, but because of the aesthetic styling of the horseshoe-shaped edifice. Strong, Roman arches are stacked above one another on the fa?ade, lacking extravagant embellishments, emphasizing the sanctity of amateur sport. Ringing the seating bowl is the colonnade, a wide concourse that has since been filled with bleachers for additional seating capacity, and also functions as the primary horizontal artery, ensuring that the bowl is uninterrupted by pathways that could block views. Regardless of the function of the many different Greco-Roman elements, the architectural vocabulary draws strongly from antiquity, and accentuates the nobility of the entire composition.
The most powerful visual aspect of the stadium is the dramatic clarity in the design of the bowl. Distinctly recalling Grecian amphitheaters, the venue echoes the performances of the past by providing a set for the exhibition of two teams, pitted against each other in a strategic match of wit and fitness. The opportunity to observe the empty stadium from the field, a chance I have been afforded on many occasions, is perhaps when the emotional appeal is the greatest. Concrete absorbs ambient noise, facilitating near dead silence, allowing the eyes to become the primary sense. In this setting the austerity is easy to appreciate, and is when the symbolic meaning of austerity, the thorough distillation of present-day college football, is made the most obvious.
Relative to the rest of college football stadia, Harvard is utterly Spartan; forgoing the luxuries afforded by corporate sponsorship and broadcast agreements. There are no glass-enclosed suites, only an aluminum coaches? booth on the top, nor are there any advertisements present, simply the large Crimson flag atop one of the stair towers, mimicked by a flag of the opposing school on the opposite tower. These are the only deliberate emblems to be seen in the stadium, honest displays of institutional pageantry. The structural honesty of the design accentuates the values of the athletic program, and without ever reading a mission statement, fans are able to interpret the philosophy of the Harvard Crimson.
The Ivy League, while not considered to be the pinnacle of athletic prowess, can be considered the guardian of the spirit of competition. By refusing to distribute scholarships to prospective students on the basis of athletics alone, they maintain a policy preserving the tradition of amateur sports. This idea, one so cherished by college football fans, yet so tragically under-practiced, is physically expressed by Harvard Stadium on an intellectual level, as well as an emotional level. The architecture does not waste time with garish decorations or gaudy advertisements; instead, it focuses on a formal composition to speak to the occupants of the structure. Upon entering through the outer arches, the feeling of heritage fans experience is tremendous. The design speaks on the behalf of a century of tradition and competition, more effectively than any other venue in all of sport. I know that Harvard Stadium has made an everlasting imprint on my perception of stadium architecture; and it continues to be my reference for successful public venue design. Each and every one of the fans that experience the horseshoe the way I did, will surely form a concrete architectural memory, that they will associate with the true spirit of college athletics for evermore.
