As part of the Hungarian stadium revolution there's a stadium we may have missed entirely. That's how under-advertised it was and how fast its actual construction is going. Really, come and see!

Szeged is a major city in southern Hungary, even if their football club, Szeged 2011, has just been relegated to NB III, the third tier of domestic football. At least off the field there's a change of fate coming. After years of using seriously dilapidated facilities, there's a brand new stadium coming.

Planned in the west of the city, on what was previously a green area between the industrial and residential districts, it's part of what was named Szegedi Ifjúsági Centrum (Szeged Youth Complex). Aside from the main sports venue there will be an indoor arena, three training fields, open-air courts and an amphitheatre.

The stadium itself will only occupy a footprint of 10,000 m² due to its practical, yet unusual shape. Instead of common rectangle, it's octagonal, as envisioned by BORD Architectural Studio, famous for the Debrecen and MTK Budapest stadia, among other projects. There are no corner sections, however the bowl is enclosed with airy membrane walls, adding to the aesthetics and ensuring proper matchday experience inside.

With over 8,000 seats the stadium is expected to meet all UEFA criteria for Category 4 stadia. The roof's inner edge is placed at almost 25 meters, which means no additional floodlight masts were needed, not distrupting the general shape.

We're not able to confirm the final cost of the entire project. Szegedi Ifjúsági Centrum is expected to cost over 9 billion forints (€29m), of which the stadium should consume two thirds (roughly €18.5m).

Interestingly, construction has been scheduled for just one year. Following groundbreaking in April of 2018, majority of the roof's primary structure (weighing almost 1,000 tons) was already in place by September.

Fantastic pace of the project is owed largely to its structure, almost entirely pregabricated. While we're not entirely sure whether political affiliation is important here, most Hungarian sources we came across suggest that the contract was given to Market, whose owner is “close friends with Viktor Orban”. It's also one of Hungary's leading construction company, so let's just enjoy the construction pace, as presented on their webcams.

© Market.hu

© Market.hu