The Népstadion (People’s Stadium) is the former name of the Puskás Ferenc Stadium, a former multi-purpose stadium in Budapest, Hungary. Currently, the sports construction is undergoing a complete reconstruction that is seeing the former stadium building being completely demolished.
The first plans of a national stadium were drafted as early as 1896 when there were chances that Budapest would host the first modern Olympic Games. Although the stadium was completed only in 1954 and never hosted Olympic Games, it was the place of plenty of famous performances in Hungary. For example, the rock band Queen performed at the stadium in 1986, U2 in 1993 and Michael Jackson performed here in 1996. The legendary Hungarian “Golden Team” won 7:1 on the rematch against England after the epic 6:3 victory in England.
The all-seater stadium had a capacity of 38 652. Its demolition began in the spring of 2016. The new Puskás Ferenc Stadium and sport-complex will be reconstructed until 2019 by the plans to host the European League in 2020.
Nowadays it look like this:
According to the visualization plans, the stadium will look like this:
Puskás Ferenc Stadium will host four matches in the European Soccer Championship in 2020. Besides soccer matches, the new stadium will be suitable for hosting a variety of events, such as concerts and conferences, and could accommodate a total of 78 000 people. The expansion is scheduled to start in December this year and is expected to be completed in 2019.
The old stadium was built between 1948 and 1953 using a large number of volunteers, including soldiers. The arena was re-named after Ferenc Puskás in 2012. Puskás is widely regarded as the best striker in the world in his time and Hungary’s greatest footballer ever, who was the star of the national team during its glory years of the late 1940s and early 1950s.
via: origo.hu; hvg.hu
photos: ng.hu; MTI Ftó: Közti Zrt; tervlap.hu