ABSTRACT
The designers of pre-modern stadia rose to this challenge with admirable skill. The Colosseum and the circuses of Rome, the amphitheatre in Verona, and similar buildings throughout the Roman empire played central roles in the civic lives of their communities. Based on the circle and the oval, they were also wonderfully successful in translating functional requirements and the known building technologies of the time into noble architectural form. The profile of the Colosseum (Figure 1.3) solves at a stroke the challenges of clear viewing, structural stability and efficient circulation, the latter allowing the building to be cleared of thousands of spectators in a matter of minutes; whilst the outer façade is related to the human scale by the colonnaded arcades of its composition. So powerful and inventive was
this unprecedented façade that it became a primary source of inspiration for the architects of the Renaissance fourteen centuries later.
