Stadium Merdeka (Independence Stadium) in Kuala Lumpur, is a sports stadium, built for Malaysia's declaration of independence on 31 August 1957.
It is a gazetted national monument, along with the nearby Stadium Negara. It was the winner of the Award of Excellence in the 2008 UNESCO Asia Pacific Award for Cultural Heritage Conservation.
It is built on a prominent hill, on the edge of Chinatown. Before the stadium was built, the area was part cemetery and part 9 hole golf course. The latter moved to the RSGC. In the 1930s the whole area was known as Coronation Park.
In 1956 Tunku Abdul Rahman looked for a site for a stadium and chose it, taking land from the neighbouring Victoria Institution. The architect was Stanley Jones, he was the director of PWD and he had to do the designs in the evening after his regular job. The concept is based on an earth bowl, so it was dug down and the earth pushed to the sides. It was rarely waterlogged.
The stadium took 1 year to build and was finished just in time for the Independence ceremony - it was the first stadium to be used for such a ceremony.
The stadium became a venue for many major sporting events such as the 1977 Southeast Asian Games and the annual Merdeka Football Tournament (Pesta Bola Merdeka). It also hosted the fight between Muhammad Ali and Joe Bugner in 1975. It was also used as the venue for concerts.
In 2007, Merdeka Stadium underwent restoration to its original 1957 condition. The 45,000-capacity stadium has been reduced to 20,000, which meant that several of the upper terrace blocks built over the years had to be demolished.
Original turnstiles
© Liz Price
No reproduction without permission
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