Harvard Stadium
- Year
- 1903
- City
- Boston, MA
Harvard Stadium has anchored Soldiers Field since 1903, a U-shaped concrete bowl built to seat just over 25,000 for the Crimson football program. It was one of the first large stadiums in America built in reinforced concrete rather than wood or steel, a structural gamble that made it a template for the concrete stadiums that followed nationwide. The land itself carries its own history: Henry Lee Higginson donated the 31-acre tract in 1890 as Soldiers Field, a memorial to Harvard men killed in the Civil War.
the building
Reinforced concrete first. When it opened in 1903, Harvard Stadium was a pioneering large-scale use of reinforced concrete, and is now recognized as the nation's oldest permanent concrete structure built for intercollegiate athletics and the oldest original stadium structure still in use for college football.
Soldiers Field origin. The stadium sits on land donated to Harvard in 1890 by alumnus and patron Henry Lee Higginson, who intended the 31-acre tract as a memorial to Harvard men who died in the Civil War.
significance
Harvard Stadium was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987, one of only four athletic facilities in the country to receive that status, recognizing its early use of reinforced concrete and its influence on the design of later stadiums.
nearby
- The Class of 1959 Chapel
- Conventual Church of St. Mary and St. John
- Mary Fiske Stoughton House
- Harvard Lampoon Building
- Smith Campus Center
- Christ Church