This panoramic shot displays the sheer size of the Field House.

The Leverone Field House is a 91,800 square foot indoor athletic facility at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. The field house is home to Dartmouth indoor track and field as well as the Dartmouth Army ROTC program. Wrapping around the inside of the space is a 200m track with two long curves as well as equipment for pole-vaulting, high jumping, and throwing, making the space equipped to hold full indoor track events, as it often does. The unobstructed interior space is crucial to the space’s ability to lend itself to athletics.

This image shows the intricate design of the roof of Leverone as well as the length of the field surface.

The Leverone Field House was designed by Pier Luigi Nervi, an Italian engineer and architect famous for his work with concrete, especially “thin-shell” concrete structures. The design of the roof of Leverone, like many of his buildings is known as “anti-funicular,” meaning that it represents the shape of a cable hanging under its own weight, except upside-down. This shape allows the concrete roof to be incredibly strong while leaving a massive, unobstructed space underneath. It is truly an incredible structure.

It may seem that all of this design and space is just a palace for athletics, which it can be, but that is not the entire purpose. When looked at through a few theories of identity, we can see that this building holds much a more important place on Dartmouth’s campus.