This guide from the Rugby Football Union, the governing body for Rugby Union in England, provides information on children’s player progression at all levels from Under 7 to Under 18. Information on player safety is included along with an overview of the personal and social skills fostered by the sport. The guide, pitched both at players and adults involved as e.g. parents, coaches and first-aiders, mixes an emphasis on the benefits of playing rugby union with safety information. Key benefits for children –in the form of five Cs of competence, confidence, connection, character and creativity – are set out as captions on a five-pillared classical temple beneath a pediment which contains the caption “rugby union builds:”.

The use of a classical temple to convey key goals of the rugby union exemplifies the sense of authority typically conveyed by the use of the architectural vocabulary of ancient Greece and Rome on banks, libraries, museums and so forth. But while the use of the temple typifies the seriousness that can be conveyed via classical architecture, the illustration also points to the enjoyment that children can gain from encounters with aspects of the classical world. Such a light-hearted side of classical reception for children is evident in the use of bold colour for each pillar and for the pediment rather than the more typical white or off-white of classically-inspired civic architecture. Also, the pediment and the pillars are presented as drawn with quick brush strokes rather than strict architectural-looking straight lines. The drawing of the temple, then, exemplifies the combination of seriousness and fun that characterises the guide.

Temple, Nicholas, Andrzej Piotrowski and Juan Manuel Heredia, eds.,The Routledge Handbook on the Reception of Classical Architecture, Abingdon: Routledge, 2019.

Genre: Ephemeral informational work