The Architecture of the Playing Field

Richard L. Cleary is a professor emeritus in the School of Architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, where he taught architectural history and theory. He is the author and editor of multiple books, including The Place Royale and Urban Design in the Ancien Regime and Merchant Prince and Master Builder: Edgar J. Kaufmann and Frank Lloyd Wright.

[Cleary's book] provides a concise yet thorough resource...[that] combines historical design, sociocultural theory, urban planning, and architectural design theory to demonstrate that playing spaces are [not only]...influenced by culture and values, but can also influence the rules governing our sports...The writing style contains a perfect balance of academic concepts and language, yet is accessible to anyone interested in playing space design, urban planning, policymaking, or sport media production.-- "Global Sport Business Journal" (6/16/2025 12:00:00 AM) In this innovative book, Richard Cleary contends that applying architecture's inquiries to sport can give us new ways of reading the field. Exploring a topic that has largely resided outside of architectural history, The Architecture of the Playing Field offers up novel, well-sourced insights, showing there is much to gain from this fresh premise.--Benjamin Flowers, Ohio State University, author of Beautiful Moves: Designing Stadia Richard Cleary explores the relationships between the rule-based structural features of sport, the contexts in which sport takes place, and the aesthetics of athletes moving through constrained space, as understood through the lens of architecture and undergirded by a wealth of sport-historical knowledge. In informed, engaging prose, The Architecture of the Playing Field makes a significant contribution to the field of sport aesthetics and will be welcomed by a wide range of scholars in sport, architecture, applied aesthetics, and beyond.--Jason Holt, Acadia University, author of Kinetic Beauty: The Philosophical Aesthetics of Sport