Once upon a time in a stadium

Have you ever wondered why the Stade de France resembles a flying saucer? Or what was so iconic about the Roland Garros stadium in the eyes of tennis fans? The 2024 Olympic & Paralympic Games, around which life will revolve this summer, are also featuring heavily on the art and culture scene, with the Cultural Olympiad. Until the end of the Olympic festivities, you’re invited to explore another facet of sport at the museums, festivals and other cultural venues. To mark the occasion, the Architecture and Heritage Centre will host a temporary exhibition on that iconic venue of sporting history that never fails to bring people together: the stadium. Whether or not you’re a supporter at heart, it’s time to discover these history-steeped places from an alternative angle.

180 metres of sport and adrenalin

In Ancient Greece, a ‘stadium’ was a unit of measurement equivalent to 180 metres. Now a venue in its own right, through the centuries the stadium has made its way to the collective unconscious and into the very history of our civilisation. With the 20th-century boom in mass sports, architects and urban planners have come to change the way stadiums are designed, both for aesthetic and societal purposes. As a training ground and competition venue, the stadium is gradually turning into a performance stage, a place where people unite, and even a national heritage site. The Olympic Games and other international events are perfect examples of stadiums stealing the show from those who perform in them. Hence, the exhibition entitled Once upon a time in a stadium looks at their evolution, from the creation of the modern stadium in the early 20th-century, to its globalisation.

A 3-fold exhibition

Through a rich collection borrowed from the Architecture & Heritage Centre and the National Sport Museum in Nice, visitors are invited to reflect on the links between urban creation and the cathartic dimension of sport. The 3 tour paths featuring models, photographs, sketches and sports accessories will plunge you into the stadium world. The ‘Democratise’ tour explains how the hygienist movement and easier access to sport has encouraged the proliferation of stadiums and attracted the attention of architects and urban planners. The ‘Perform’ section deals with sportspeople and their followers. This tour explores how their behaviour and dynamism has brought momentum to the architectural design of stadiums, with grandstands shaped like waves to reflect the enthusiasm of spectators, and installations that appear to mimic the athletes’ energy set in motion… Last but not least, the ‘Globalise’ tour reveals how international sporting events have turned stadiums into national identity icons. This last section also explains how, paradoxically, such globalisation requires architects to distinguish themselves by adding a unique touch to their creations.

For cultural tours and artistic getaways, check out the exhibitions of the Paris Region.