A little exercise.

Then strip lads and to it, though sharp be the weather And if by mischance you should happen to fall, There are worse things in lift than a tumble on heather And lift itself is but a game of football(1)

Sir Walter Scott's ballad was written to honour the first game of football to be played to rules that are recognisably modern (between the Scottish Border towns of Selkirk and Yarrow in 1815), and these lines mark the start of the great nineteenth- and twentieth-century obsession with sport as a means of improving the physical and mental well-being of individuals, as well as being the focus for non-violent contests between communities (or at least ones in which little blood is shed, and people are rarely killed).

In organising and celebrating sport in this way, nineteenth-century societies were consciously harking back to the ideals of the Greeks where, particularly in the Olympic rituals, sport could exalt both the individual athlete and his city-state in a celebration to the Gods. The nineteenth century added the dimensions of Christianity and team-spirit, an ethos designed to encourage local and national loyalties and semi-military discipline in an age when the industrial revolution was breaking down traditional notions of community and hierarchy. Had it not been for the industrial revolution, the huge stress on organised games at all levels of society might not have been seen to be essential, but it would almost certainly have been impossible to achieve without the leisure that nineteenth-century machinery (for all its horrors) could give a wide range of society. Greek athletes and their audiences had been given time to enjoy the games by the slave class which freed citizens from a subsistence way of life. In the middle ages and the Renaissance, there were, of course, feast days and holidays, but the church itself acted as focus for leisure activities, so special buildings were not needed, and in any case, mass culture as we now understand it did not exist. Curiously, it was the steam engine that enabled the re-invention of ancient types such as the Greek stadium and the Roman amphitheatre, which were needed to accommodate the crowds. Even now, the types are fundamentally the same as they were 2000 years ago, though construction and transport methods have changed.

In the first part of this century, large-scale spectator sport undoubtedly helped to keep the masses relatively tranquil, as it did in ancient Rome (the role is played by television now, and football crowds, for instance, are much less docile than they used to be). The passive nature of spectator sport caused a good deal of disquiet in progressive circles. Even Le Corbusier (normally very keen to keep the working class in its place, preferably many storeys above ground) was worried: 'Exhibition sport has nothing to do with real sport; it is more allied to the theatre, the circus, etc. The stadium provides a spectacle where other people's marvellously developed biceps and calves can be seen. Sport at the very door of one's house is needed, so that everyone - men, women and children - on reaching home, can change their things and come down for play and exercise, to fill their lungs and relax and strengthen their muscles'.(2) Lewis Mumford, too, decried 'vast gladiatorial arenas', for 'the multiplication of such great stadiums with their mass spectacles is not necessarily desirable'.(3) While pouring scorn on the motto over the gates of the 'playland' of an Indiana industrial town 'Play Hard so that you may Work Hard'(4), Mumford was keen on sport for the young because it led to 'keeping girls and boys in a state of healthy distraction'. For both Le Corbusier and Mumford, the necessity of making sporting facilities conveniently available overrode most other factors in making the urban fabric. Their influence can be seen in endless tracts of grey grass in and around the housing estates of the '50s and '60s. They were never used for the group callisthenics of which the inter-war theorists dreamed.(5) Now most of them are litter-filled and totally lacking in purpose. Couple this mess to the blighting effect that stadiums, with their huge car-parks have on the city (or even the suburb), and it is difficult to avoid the suggestion that provisions for sport have had a generally destructive effect on the urban fabric during this century.

Though the planning follies will never be repeated, there seems to be no hope that the stadium can ever be tamed as a type - while the car remains the main means of transport to it. Yet there are perhaps some signs that provision for sport need not always be destructive. It would cheer the '30s theoreticians to know that though their local sports grounds have failed, there is an increasing demand for swimming, aerobics, and similar forms of exercise pursued on a personal basis (at least by the affluent). Provision for such activities can easily be fitted into a complex city fabric, and indeed can contribute to it and enhance urban life even for people who do not take part in sport, as several schemes shown in this issue demonstrate.

The demand for spectator sport continues and there seems to be little likelihood that most will lose delight in seeing 'other people's marvellously developed biceps and calves' in rhythmic team action. But the tendency for sport to be enjoyed on an individual and small-group basis grows at the expense of popular participation in team games. It gives a new dimension to the organisation of an individual's time and the spaces of society. There is an explosion of activities such as ski-ing and sailing, which entail intense pressure on resorts and their surroundings. This AR - which takes the theme of leisure, though it has a very strong sporting component - scarcely touches on such matters (except perhaps in the hotels by Hill (pp65-69) and Bawa (pp70-74), but it is plainly an extremely important issue in all kinds of societies and we shall return to the theme of tourism in a future issue.

1 Lockart, J.W., Life of Sir Walter Scott, Vol III, p395. Quoted in Johnson, Paul, The Birth of the Modern, Phoenix, London, 1992, p 704.

2 Le Corbusier, The City of Tomorrow, The Architectural Press, London, 1929, p214. (The first English edition of Urbanisme, 1924).

3 Mumford, Lewis, The Culture of Cities, Secker & Warburg, London, 1940, p429.

4 Ibid. p430. The words are a chilling pre-echo of the motto over the gates of Auschwitz: Arbeit mach Frei (work makes you free).

5 The only place where I have come across such activity happening is in the Park, Hong Kong where, from earliest light, individuals and groups of all ages are to be found engaged in t'ai chi, in the pursuit of health and fitness.