A spectator sport Louise Cotter considers historic precedent and inspiration in her appraisal of Dublin’s new Aviva stadium

Despite the intense development in Dublin over the last decade only the shimmering form of the new Aviva Stadium suggests the 21st century. This arresting intervention, designed by Populous and Scott Tallon Walker, owes much to the imagination of visionaries such as Cedric Price and Archigram, who first conceived of these rotund biomechanical forms almost fifty years ago.