Zeidler Miklós: Sporting Spaces - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2000)
The architectural group was to have been dominated by a large, oval sports hall, next to which two smaller halls would have stood. One small hall was inaugurated in 1941 to mark Regent Miklós Horthy’s name-day, but any further development was prevented first by the war, then by the construction of the People’s Stadium. The chief designer of the National Sports Hall, the facility originally bearing the name of Horthy, was Gyula Rimanóczy, who created a modern building with a clear structure, a splendid fagade and capacious internal spaces. A large fencing hall was arranged upstairs, while the hall downstairs, with terraces seating 1,200 spectators on two sides, are suitable for basketball and volley-ball games as well as fencing and gymnastics competitions. In 1966 a further hall meant to host ball games but in fact appropriated by the gymnasts was annexed to the existing facility. The People’s Stadkjm Both its sports-related and architectural significance raise the People’s Stadium above all other sports facilities in Budapest. The first time that the idea of erecting a “national stadium” emerged was in 1895, when Athens withdrew its application to organise the Olympic games and the Hungarian Olympic Committee immediately volunteered as a substitute. However, the government of Hungary, heeding the opposition voiced by Francis Joseph and a jealous Vienna, vetoed the plan, and then Athens returned into the competition. Although Budapest as a potential venue for the games was frequently suggested later on, too, the plan never materialised. The government similarly procrastinated about the issue of building a national stadium, even though generations of architects were preoccupied with making designs for the undertaking. From late 1913 onwards, the first among the best- known and finest plans was the idea devised by Alfréd Hajós and János Villányi. What the two architects conceived of was a comprehensive football, cycling, and athletics stadium with a seating capacity of 30,000, including an outdoor swimming pool, a sports hall and a college of physical education, to be built more or less 53
