List of Illustrations

7Three temporary arenas in the Roman forum, according to Catherine Welch. (3) and (4) Wooden bleachers accommodating ludic arenas between (1) the Aemilia basilica and (2) Julia (Sempronal) basilica in the Roman forum, 2nd century BC

8Early conceptions about sport in the city. After le Corbusier’s sketch of Unwis Garden City, c. 1910, and his 1925 lotissements a alveoles

9Rooftop cricket in Jaisalabad

10A racecourse on the Agora, Athens, 400 BC

11‘Good design’ in tools and sport implements

12Colliding field patterns for work and leisure in the Forêt de Compiegne, from a hunting charter of the Ile de France

13Chasing stags in the Tabladillo Aranjuez

14(a) Landscapes and hazards: coursing in Stonehenge, 1845; (b) limestone walls in Derbyshire

15Square as arena at Santa Croce, Florence, 1688

16Independent field and square in Visviri, Atacama Desert plateau, Chile

17Spianada cricket ground, Kerkira, Corfu

18Bullring at Campo de Santana, Rio de Janeiro, early 19th century

19Embedded and formal types: (a) impromptu bullring in Chinchon; (b) octagonal pattern in Almaden; (c) canonical form in Almeria

20Rings and squares: (top row) Plaza Mayor Madrid, Plaza del Coso Peñafiel, Plaza Mayor Chinchon, Plaza de Toros Freguenal; (bottom row) Mijas, Aranjuez and San Roque

21Rural patterns in the metropolis and the colonies: (a) Alaraz; (b) Atienza in Spain; (c) Ollantaytambo, Peru

22The demountable bullring over a football pitch for the Corraleja, Sincelejo, Colombia

23Houses and the arena: (a) Aguilar de la Frontera, 1806; (b) demountable bleachers in Riaza, Spain

24Evolution of bullrings: (left to right) informal; open country; informal urban; semiformal with temporary array; geometric phase; canonical type

25The Colosseum rubbing shoulders with civic building

26Discrete arenas: an 18th-century cockpit within a building in Buenos Aires

27Elementary formats: holding the ring, Argentina

28(a) Royal Circus and Crescent, Bath; (b) Piazza del Anfiteatro, Lucca

29Scale contrasts and typological inversions in the Roman amphitheatre and Bath’s Royal Crescent

30Frontón (Basque ball) at Segura, Spain, with the playing arena across the square from the atrium

31Pattern and variations of frontónes in (a) ‘Nacional de Buenos Aires’; (b) Beti Jai (‘always festive’ ), Madrid

32Torroja and Suazo Frontón Recoletos Madrid, 1935

33Luiggi Moretti fencing hall, in Accademia de Scherma, Foro Italico, Rome

34Irish handball alley attached to Buncrana Castle, County Donegal

35A billiard room

36Children’s playroom and billiard room at the Robie House. Chicago: Ground floor plan, Frank Lloyd Wright, 1910

37Outdoor Play in a 1970’s Chinese commune

38Comparative field plans

39Manuel Casanueva: a 3-metre diameter ball becomes the playing field. Teams take turns launching a player towards the ball

40Comparative track and racecourse plans

41Large ludic imprints: racecourse in Rio de Janeiro

42Bois de Boulogne: (a) before and (b) after transformation by Adolphe Alphand, executed 1882.

43Ludic patterns: (a) Maze at Hampton Court, (b) Go kart race track

44Movement protocols in (a) Ludic and (b) pedestrian practices

45Man-made hazard

46(a) Holmenkollen ski jump, Oslo; (b) plan of Gramisch Paterkirchen ski jump stadium, Bayern

47Displacements: (a) Oberstdorf (168 metre); (b) Wembley Stadium wooden ski-jumping hill, 1961; (c) Ski jump diagram: note that higher profile and elevation correspond to Obertsdorf

48Araucanian games: (a) Guiseppe Erba, Odescalchi, Odescalchi et al. Indians Playing Chueca; (b) Claudio Gay, contrasting view in 1854

49Rodchenko chess table and chairs: one half black the other red, for a workers’ club, 1925

50(a) The sport arena and the axis of symmetry in Leonidov’s Cultural Palace for Moscow, 1930; (b) Corbusier with Pierre Jeanneret Mundaneum in Lake Geneve, 1929

51Symmetrical rigours: lawn and playgrounds in Jean Nicholas’ Forestier Parque, Saavedra, Buenos Aires, 1924

52Classical hippodromes integrated to larger ensembles: (a) a college by Durand; (b) a royal palace over the Acropolis by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, 1834

53Henry Barnard’s 1848 school desk with a sand tray

54Piazza Navona flooded, Rome, 1827

55Ludic mutations in the urban arena. Three identities of Piazza Navona: (a) as a racecourse (Campus Agonis); (b) the flooded square; (c) in its current shape

56Confined swimming in the sea-water pool at Miami, Florida, c. 1920

57Ludus and paideia in Corbusier’s binary pool scheme

58Tony Garnier’s (a) civic and (b) ludic ensemble at the Cité Industrielle

59Atelier Nikolsky, 1928, swimming pool, Leningrad

60H. A. Brown: Weston-super-Mare springboard, 1937

61(a) Castel Fusano, Ostia, diving board designed by Nervi; (b) Icarai Board in Niteroi, Rio de Janeiro

62Swimming overloaded with ancillary programmes as recommended in Ortner’s manual

63Baroque scale in the rowing pool, Bos Park, Amsterdam (Corneus van Eesteren). (1) Rowing pool; (2) sports field.

64(a) Instructions for orientation in football pitches; (b) the conception of a quadrangular pattern

65(a) Metaphysical and secular alignments of churches after the fire of London; (b) Le Corbusier master plan for Meaux, 1956

66Principles of disorientation in a labyrinth, Pompeii

67Mediations: (a) alternative seating arrangements on stadia according to Ortner; (b) Le Corbusier’s conception of a versatile stadium for 100,000 people

68Training at the golf driving ranges on Pier 66, Manhattan

69Domestic training in Maria Montessori’s exercises on personal care

70Training pontoons

71Augusta National Golf Club, Georgia: (a) the field as a sequential entanglement of fairways, (b) evolving patterns 1934–present

72Patterns of minigolf

73The barren golf course in the Atacama Desert, Chile

74Pezo von Ellrichshausen’s ‘120 Doors’: a bewildering set of paths based upon the utmost rational layout

75Soft and hard surfaces meet at Soldiers’ Field, Harvard University, over the winter season.

76The function of boundaries in a striated field pattern at Leonidov’s new town of Magnitogorsk, USSR, 1930

77Sport mosaics: (a) 23 tennis courts in Hansen’s sport park, Copenhagen; (b) in Ortner’s scheme for Munich

78Playing with the boundary: an overused net in Casanueva’s Despelote

79Organic flow and orthogonal frame: (a) Burle Marx’s roof terrace at the Ministry of Education, Rio de Janeiro; (b) the dilemmas of flow vis-à-vis the field

80Reidy and Burle Marx playing fields at the Aterro de Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro

81Informal fields in Brazil, Joachim Schmid ‘O Campo’, 2010

82The baseball arena as a public square

83Manhattan adaptations

84Flatten the site. Sewell company town, Chile

85Site-specific slide on a hillside, Valparaiso

86Field and topography colliding

87Sert and GATEPAC City of Leisure, Catalonia, 1934

88Leonidov’s 1930 house of industry: typical floor plan with gymnasia and working stations side by side

89Recreational needs classified and quantified: (a) Dutch CIAM age chart; (b) Ortner sport needs per inhabitant (adult male 3.5 m² plus 1 m²; middle bathing area 1 m² per head with 0.1 m² water surface; playground 0.5 m²)

90(a) Stepanova, 1923 Soviet sport attire; (b) athletes, Malevich, 1932

91Frederick Kiesler, space house. Interior view with photomural ‘determination (labour and play)’; modern-age furniture company, New York, 1933

92Luigi Moretti’s so-called parametric stadium with optimized viewing angles for spectators, 1960

93The form and its vestiges: (a) Roman amphitheatre remains in Housestead’s England; (b) Roman Colosseum

94Apartments and arenas: (a) Porte Molitor, Corb’s own apartment as seen from the stadium; (b) Ilote Insalubre n^o 6, Paris

95Le Corbusier’s marble villa with communal tennis courts, and hanging gardens facing outwards

96Le Corbusier’s Alveoles condominium, with alternating strips for ‘play’, ‘garden’ and ‘allotments’

97Football, tennis and swimming in the collective grounds of Corbusier’s Ville Verte

98Le Corbusier’s the Mourondins, provisional housing for war refugees, 1944. Overall plan with the devastated city on the right, emergency dwellings around courts with lawns indicated as children’s play areas and extensive sport facilities in front park

99(a) Le Corbusier’s Firmini Vert sport ensemble with church swimming pool, stadium youth centre (miracle box); (b) secondary field

100Le Corbusier’s stadium complex in Baghdad, including swimming pools, gymnasia, tennis and football

101Louis I. Kahn’s Market Street East, Philadelphia, 1961, with arena near the town hall

102The stadium at the core of the Citadel. Louis I. Kahn, Dacca, 1964

103Louis I. Kahn’s Fort Wayne fine arts centre, Indiana, 1961, 64 with stadium across railway line

104Coliseum and debating chamber in Louis I. Kahn’s, Dacca, (penultimate scheme): left Citadel of the Institutions; right Citadel of the Assembly, 1964

105Ludic arenas and civic spaces in Abbas Abad, Teheran, 1974: oval square and rectangular maidan with stadium embedded on the hills on the left

106Alison and Peter Smithson, Kuwait old city, Orangerie Maidan 1969

107The urbanism of golf: ludic and residential tissues at islands. Right compact golf course detail. Florida, John Nolen

108Size dilemmas: (a) Prouve’s 1936 miniature desk; (b) Rietveld helps the child to reach the adults’ table

109Play-oriented traits in the post-war house: (a) Marcel Breuer’s Moma House, 1949, with playroom next to children’s bedroom and children’s court with sand pit in the garden; (b) Louis I. Kahn’s sun house with tennis court

110Play on decks: (a) a school in Islington, London, photo by the author; (b) the Empress of Britain tennis deck ‘here in the middle of the ocean, tennis and swimming pool, sunbathing … and enjoying the boat’s girth … dimensions apply to the ville radieuse’ (Corbusier)

111Unité Berlin grounds and rooftops for play and leisure

112Tennis court above the Centrosoyus building in Moscow by Le Corbusier

113Ludic counterpoints, sunshine and urban misery, according to Corbusier’s, Jeux Eugenisme, c. 1940

114Play facilities at street level in Smithson’s Golden Lane scheme

115Playing among ruins at Seville, 1933

11619th-century horse stampede in Roman streets

117Plastic sensibility and crass insensibility according to Rudofsky: (a) the wonderful imagination of Ethiopian children against (b) Froebel’s passion for cubes

118(a) Play supplants traffic in Copenhagen ‘play streets’; (b) traffic playground at Lords’ recreation ground, London

119Aldo Van Eyck sand pits with modular concrete sets

120Isamu Noguchi’s topographic playscape in Yokohama

121Isamu Noguchi’s slide mantra, preliminary study, c. 1940

122Louis I. Kahn’s community centre and adjoining playground, Mill Creek housing, Philadelphia, 1953

123Louis I. Kahn’s ludic patterns at the Jewish Community Centre in Trenton, NJ, 1954–1959

124Louis I. Kahn and Isamu Noguchi’s Adele Levy Memorial Playground in Riverside Drive, New York, 1960–65, third proposal

125Alison and Peter Smithson, Robin Hood Gardens scheme with mounds and sport yard

126Ludic counterpoints; (a) horizontal grounds for games in the Ville Verte; (b) mounds as arenas for Paideia in the Robin Hood Gardens

127Urban leisure cores carved out of the grid: (a) Chicago market park, Hilberseimer, c. 1950; (b) European housing blocks before and after intervention

128An odd landscape: Sorensen’s inaugural adventure playground in Copenhagen; a barren site sheltered behind mounds and foliage

129Heuried recreational centre, Zurich; overall view with adventure playground against cultural centre

130(a) Memories of underdevelopment: a counterpoint of formal systems in Copenhagen’s adventure playground; (b) the informal surrounds the formal field in Buenos Aires Villa 31

131Dimitri Pikionis’s playground in Philotei, Athens

132Thrills of the miniature in: (a) Aldo Rossi’s Le Cabine dell Elba and (b) Giorgio Chirico’s Evocations about Life by the Italian Seaside

133Play sculpture by Julliette de Jeckel

134Gulio Minoletti’s submerged sculpture

135Oscar Niemeyer, 1983, Zambodromo, Rio de Janeiro

136A stern approach to school, hard-paved yard in Camden Town, London

137A Scout leader explains the Murondins to his companions in Le Corbusier’s conception about the reconstruction

138An elementary ensemble: an aexedra, classrooms and the playground in Wilson’s Primary School, England, 1825

139Contrasting technologies and traditional patterns of twin stools: (a) Jean Prouve, 1951; (b) high school, Providence (19th century)

140Swimming and field games at Le Corbusier and Prouve’s ‘portable schools for refugees’, 1939–1940; note the binary pool

141Two settings for play at the new town of Nagele: (a) football by the edge of town; (b) playgrounds sheltered within thick groves

142Hunstanton School, East Anglia: the main block flanked by symmetrical sport fields that mediate between school and the rural hinterland

143Stadium and orphanage in Amsterdam

144Bauhaus blocks and sport fields, Dessau

145Athematical gambits at the Illinois Institute of Technology by Mies van der Rohe (intermediate scheme)

146Smithson and Stirling’s competing visions about a Cambridge college in its relation to its grounds

147Topographic devices for wind control in a sport cluster at the Naval Academy, Valparaiso. Competition entry by architects of the Valparaiso School

148Epic scale and pre-Columbian associations at Alberto Taray’s 1952 Hai Jalay play courts in Mexico’s university city

149A pleasure machine: Cedric Price and Joan Littlewood’s fun palace, Lea Valley, London. Worm’s eye perspective, 1964

150The old in the new: Yonna Friedmann’s Ville Spatialle, collated to a Mediterranean village

151Friedmann’s bid for the Paris Olympics 2004, with a demountable stadium at Place de la Concorde

152The play board as a sculpture constant. Neienhuis’s Ambiance de Jeu, 1956

153Strenuous efforts: a late Victorian gymnastic apparatus

154A field of ludic objects: John Hedjuk’s memorial for the Gestapo victims, Berlin. Completion stage with 67 items

155Leisure ensembles at Chantilly le Notre’s garden with hunting grounds, the hippodrome and a golf course

156Fields and squares

157Mapping the body for food or leisure: Chilean beef chart 28 cuts; American Angus 9 cuts; Argentinean 22 cuts; Chilean rodeo points 4 sections

158A lexicon of urban spaces