ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION For sports enthusiasts, stadia provide the backdrop to memories of past glories and evoke fantasies future glories. Titles such as ‘Theatre of Dreams’ and ‘Venue of Legends’, which Old Trafford in Manchester and the existing Wembley Stadium have been given respectively, illustrate the special role these stadia have in the mind of those who congregate within them with anticipation of spectacle and excitement. In a sense, major football stadia can be considered as opera houses for the masses. This seems all the more appropriate now that stadia are regularly used for music events as well as sporting. As such, stadia should be given the architectural treatment such a status suggests. People expect the design and ambience of a great theatre to heighten the senses of attendant spectators and so if the stadium is to be considered as a very large theatre so it should be designed to heighten the senses of all those who visit it.
