Stadiums as Today's Most Significant Monumental Architecture

In a Dezeen opinion piece, academic Benjamin Flowers argues that stadiums have become the predominant expression of urban monumentality. Unlike churches, museums, or capitol buildings, stadiums are often the largest and most expensive structures in any city. They command public affection in an era of declining trust in state, religious, and corporate institutions. Flowers notes that star architects like Norman Foster, Herzog & de Meuron, Zaha Hadid, Kengo Kuma, Eduardo Souto de Moura, and Bjarke Ingels have all designed stadiums, drawn by ballooning budgets—SoFi Stadium cost $2bn in a $5bn development, and Real Madrid's Bernabéu renovation reached $2bn. Stadiums now serve as concert venues, retail spaces, and even churches, fostering emotional and economic intimacy. However, their monumental aesthetics are politically charged: HKS's design for the Washington Commanders' stadium echoes the Berlin Olympic Stadium by Werner March, built for the 1936 Nazi Games. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán oversaw the Pancho Arena by Imre Makovecz, blending football with religious nationalism. Flowers contrasts today's celebrity architects with Archibald Leitch, a Scottish engineer who designed early 20th-century stadiums on modest budgets, most now demolished. He concludes that stadiums embody the tensions of capital, sport, and politics, confirming them as the era's defining monumental form.