Constructalgia cured: Sports heritage in the Anthropocene and beyond

This article is based on the creation of sports heritage as having strong roots in the Anthropocene. It particularly discusses listed building declarations of the built heritage of sport, from a Swedish perspective, as well as the feelings of nostalgia associated with such activities. Two contemporary examples of preserved sports heritage sites, Hindås Ski Jumping Hill in Hindås and the stand at Virdavallen in Alvesta, are analysed. The analysis shows that the preservation or the foreverising of sporting sites is based on a fear of losing them, known as constructalgia, and that a listed building declaration is a way of curing such feelings. The importance of preserving the sites is partly about honouring past generations and partly about offering the heritage of sport to future generations. Using contemporary heritage theory and a post-anthropocentric approach, the article problematises prevailing, human-centred conservation paradigms and proposes other imaginative ideas of how to think beyond the ingrained patterns that characterise the Anthropocene.