 Speer apparently adopted a horseshoe shape for his building only after rejecting the oval shape of an amphitheatre.The latter plan, he claimed, would have intensified the heat and produced psychological discomfort, a comment he does not elucidate.When Speer remarked on the staggering cost of the building, Hitler, who laid its cornerstone on September 9, 1937, merely retorted that it would cost less than two battleships of the .