The
Great Strahov Stadium (
Velký strahovský stadion in
CzechCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. Czech is similar to and mutually intelligible with Slovak and, to a lesser extent, to Polish and Sorbian. - Official status :Czech is widely...
) is a
stadiumA modern stadium is a place, or venue, for outdoor sports, concerts or other events, consisting of a field or stage partly or completely surrounded by a structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.-History of the stadium:The word originates from the Greek word...
in the
StrahovThis article is about the district of Prague. For other uses of the name, see StrahovStrahov is a district of Prague in the Czech Republic...
district of
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Nicknames for Prague have included "the mother of cities" , "city of a hundred spires", or Stověžatá Praha in Czech and "the golden city" or Zlaté město in Czech.Situated on the River Vltava in central Bohemia, Prague has been the...
,
Czech RepublicThe Czech Republic is a country in Central Europe that is sometimes considered to be Eastern European. The country borders Poland to the northeast, Germany to the west and northwest, Austria to the south and Slovakia to the east. The capital and largest city is Prague...
. The stadium is no longer in use for sports events; it is a training centre for Sparta Prague, and is used to host pop concerts. The stadium is sited on
PetřínPetřín is a hill in the center of Prague, Czech Republic. It rises some 130 m above the left bank of the Vltava River. The hill, almost entirely covered with parks, is a favorite recreational area for the inhabitants of Prague...
hill overlooking the old city. It can be accessed by taking the
Petřín funicularThe Petřín funicular is a funicular railway in the Czech capital city of Prague. It links the Malá Strana district with the top of Petřín hill. The funicular has three stops: Újezd , Nebozízek and Petřín...
up the hill through the gardens.
The stadium was the largest in the world when first constructed, and is still the second largest sports facility worldwide after the
Indianapolis Motor SpeedwayThe Indianapolis Motor Speedway, located in Speedway, Indiana in the United States, is the home of the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race....
, seating around 220,000.
Construction began on a wooden stadium in 1926, which was replaced by concrete grandstands in 1932.
The
Great Strahov Stadium (
Velký strahovský stadion in
CzechCzech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. Czech is similar to and mutually intelligible with Slovak and, to a lesser extent, to Polish and Sorbian. - Official status :Czech is widely...
) is a
stadiumA modern stadium is a place, or venue, for outdoor sports, concerts or other events, consisting of a field or stage partly or completely surrounded by a structure designed to allow spectators to stand or sit and view the event.-History of the stadium:The word originates from the Greek word...
in the
StrahovThis article is about the district of Prague. For other uses of the name, see StrahovStrahov is a district of Prague in the Czech Republic...
district of
PraguePrague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Nicknames for Prague have included "the mother of cities" , "city of a hundred spires", or Stověžatá Praha in Czech and "the golden city" or Zlaté město in Czech.Situated on the River Vltava in central Bohemia, Prague has been the...
,
Czech RepublicThe Czech Republic is a country in Central Europe that is sometimes considered to be Eastern European. The country borders Poland to the northeast, Germany to the west and northwest, Austria to the south and Slovakia to the east. The capital and largest city is Prague...
. The stadium is no longer in use for sports events; it is a training centre for Sparta Prague, and is used to host pop concerts. The stadium is sited on
PetřínPetřín is a hill in the center of Prague, Czech Republic. It rises some 130 m above the left bank of the Vltava River. The hill, almost entirely covered with parks, is a favorite recreational area for the inhabitants of Prague...
hill overlooking the old city. It can be accessed by taking the
Petřín funicularThe Petřín funicular is a funicular railway in the Czech capital city of Prague. It links the Malá Strana district with the top of Petřín hill. The funicular has three stops: Újezd , Nebozízek and Petřín...
up the hill through the gardens.
Construction
The stadium was the largest in the world when first constructed, and is still the second largest sports facility worldwide after the
Indianapolis Motor SpeedwayThe Indianapolis Motor Speedway, located in Speedway, Indiana in the United States, is the home of the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race....
, seating around 220,000.
Construction began on a wooden stadium in 1926, which was replaced by concrete grandstands in 1932. Further construction occurred in 1948 and 1975. The playing field, surrounded by seating on all sides, is 63,500
square metreThe square metre is the SI derived unit of area, with symbol m2. It is defined as the area of a square whose sides measure exactly one metre...
s. The stadium currently serves Sparta Prague as a training centre with 8 football pitches (6 pitches of standard sizes and 2
futsalFutsal is a variant of association football that is mainly played indoors. Its name is derived from the Portuguese fut ebol de sal ão and the Spanish fút bol sal a/de sal ón, which can be translated as 'salon football'...
pitches).
History
The original stadium dates from the
First RepublicThe first Czechoslovak Republic , refers to the first Czechoslovak state that existed from 1918 to 1938. The state was commonly called Czechoslovakia . It was composed of Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Slovakia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia...
between the World Wars and served as a venue for
SokolThe Sokol movement is a Czech and Slavic youth movement and gymnastics organization founded in Prague in 1862 by Miroslav Tyrš and Jindřich Fügner...
displays of synchronized gymnastics on a massive scale. It was later used for large displays during the
communist eraThe Czechoslovak Socialist Republic was the official name of Czechoslovakia from 1960 until early 1990 The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (Československá socialistická republika in Czech and Slovak) was the official name of Czechoslovakia from 1960 until early 1990 The Czechoslovak Socialist...
. Performances with several hundred gymnasts making various complex formations and exercising identically while accompanied by tunes from traditional folk music attracted the attention of many visitors. Each time, among the widely popular shows were those of young well-trained recruits who wore only
boxer shortsBoxer shorts are a type of undergarment worn by men. The term has been used in English since 1944 for all-around-elastic shorts, so named after the shorts worn by pugilists, for whom unhindered leg movement is very important.Reasons for a preference for boxers can be attributed to their variety...
while on the display or women dancing in
miniskirtA miniskirt, sometimes hyphenated as mini-skirt, is a skirt with a hemline well above the knees – generally no longer than below the buttocks...
s. The groups of gymnasts (unlike the soldiers, who were
ordered to practise and participate) were put together from keen local Sokol athletic association members who regularly trained for the show throughout the year prior to the event, which repeated every five years. The ambiguous name of the performance, Spartakiáda, referred to the power and strength of the
slave uprising led by SpartacusThe Third Servile War , also called the Gladiator War and The War of Spartacus by Plutarch, was the last of a series of unrelated and unsuccessful slave rebellions against the Roman Republic, known collectively as the Roman Servile Wars...
.
Motor racing also took place in the stadium in the mid-1960s.
Since 1990, the stadium has been used for concerts.
Concerts
- Rolling Stones, Aug. 18, 1990 and Aug. 5, 1995, attendance 100,000 and 127,000 respectively.
- Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses is an American rock band that was formed in Los Angeles, California in 1985. The band, led by frontman and co-founder Axl Rose, has gone through numerous line-up changes and controversies since its formation...
, May 20, 1992, attendance 100,000 spectators.
- Bon Jovi
Bon Jovi is an American rock band from Sayreville, New Jersey. Fronted by lead singer and namesake Jon Bon Jovi , Bon Jovi formed in 1983 with guitarist Richie Sambora, keyboardist David Bryan, bassist Alec John Such and drummer Tico Torres. Other than the departure of Alec John Such in 1994 and...
, Sept. 4, 1993.
- Aerosmith
Aerosmith is an American hard rock band, sometimes referred to as "The Bad Boys from Boston" and seen by some as America's greatest rock and roll band. Their style, which is rooted in blues-based hard rock, has come to also incorporate elements of pop, heavy metal, and rhythm and blues,, and has...
, May 27, 1994.
- Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd were an English rock band who, in the late 1960s, earned recognition for their psychedelic and space rock music, and in the 1970s, as they evolved, for their progressive rock music. Pink Floyd's work is marked by philosophical lyrics, sonic experimentation, innovative album cover art,...
, Sept. 7, 1994, attendance was officially 110,000, but eventually another estimated 10,000 people sneaked in or pushed into the venue.
- Bratři Nedvědové, June 21, 1996, attendance 60,000
- U2
U2 are a rock band that formed in Dublin, Ireland. The band consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr...
, Aug. 14, 1997, attendance approx. 80,000 - 90,000 spectators (the second largest concert of the 1997 PopMart Tour)
- AC/DC
AC/DC are an Australian rock band formed in Sydney in 1973 by Scottish-born brothers Malcolm and Angus Young. Although the band are commonly classified as hard rock and are considered pioneers of heavy metal, they have always classified their music as "rock and roll".AC/DC underwent several line-up...
, June 12, 2001, attendance 25,000 people, guest: RammsteinRammstein is a German rock band from Berlin, formed in 1994. The band consists of members Till Lindemann , Richard Z. Kruspe , Paul H. Landers , Oliver "Ollie" Riedel , Christoph "Doom" Schneider and Christian "Flake" Lorenz...
- Ozzfest
Ozzfest is an annual festival tour of the United States featuring performances by many heavy metal and hard rock musical groups. It was founded by Ozzy Osbourne and his wife Sharon Osbourne, both of whom also organize each yearly tour with their son Jack Osbourne...
, May 30, 2002, attendance 30,000. Line-up: Škwor, AntiProductAntiProduct are a UK-based glam punk band, fronted by Alex Kane, formerly of Clam Abuse, Steve Dahl and Teenage Radiation, Enuff Z'nuff, Holland, and Life, Sex & Death....
, AstroMetro, Royal Playboy Cartel, SlayerSlayer is an American thrash metal band from Huntington Park, California, formed in 1981. The band was founded by guitarists Jeff Hanneman and Kerry King. Slayer rose to fame as one of the leaders of the American thrash metal movement with their 1986 release, Reign in Blood, which has been called...
, Ozzy OsbourneJohn Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne is an English singer-songwriter, whose career has now spanned four decades. Osbourne rose to prominence as lead vocalist of pioneering British heavy metal band Black Sabbath, and eventually achieved a multi-platinum solo career which revolutionized the heavy metal genre...
Václav HavelVáclav Havel is a Czech playwright, essayist, former dissident and politician. He was the tenth and last President of Czechoslovakia and the first President of the Czech Republic . He has written over twenty plays and numerous non-fiction works, translated internationally...
, former president of
Czech RepublicThe Czech Republic is a country in Central Europe that is sometimes considered to be Eastern European. The country borders Poland to the northeast, Germany to the west and northwest, Austria to the south and Slovakia to the east. The capital and largest city is Prague...
visited both of Rolling Stones concerts.
The Future of the Stadium
In the last decade several studies have looked at
adaptive reuseAdaptive reuse is the process of adapting old structures for purposes other than those initially intended.When the original use of a structure changes or is no longer required, as with older buildings from the industrial revolution, architects have the opportunity to change the primary function of...
and preservation of this unique structure. There are plans to convert the mammoth Strahov stadium complex into a commercial zone complete with hotels, restaurants and shops. Another suggestion is to turn the area into a "leisure mecca for the 21st century". There were also plans to rebuild the area as an
Olympic villageFrequently, an Olympic Village is built within an Olympic Park or elsewhere in a host city. Olympic Villages are built to house all participating athletes, as well as officials, athletic trainers, and other staff. The idea of the Olympic Village comes from Pierre de Coubertin...
if Prague wins a future Olympic bid;
bidding for 2016Prague, the capital city of the Czech Republic, bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. Prague's bid was considered a trial bid to warm up for future Olympic campaigns. Prague's bid came to an end on June 4, 2008, when it failed to make the Candidate city shortlist....
was unsuccessful.
External links