Camp Nou

Camp Nou, officially named Nou Camp, is a football stadium in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It is used mostly for football matches, hosting the home games of FC Barcelona, the club that owns it.

Opened on 24 September 1957 with a match between FC Barcelona and a team of players from the city of Warsaw, it replaced the original Camp de Les Corts, which had 60,000 seats. The seating capacity of Camp Nou is currently set at 99,354, making it the largest stadium in Spain and Europe, and the third largest football stadium in the world in capacity. The stadium was designed by architects Francesc Mitjans Miró and Josep Soteras Mauri, with the collaboration of Lorenzo García Barbón, and had a construction cost of 288 million pesetas.

A UEFA category four stadium and one of the biggest stadiums by capacity in the world, Camp Nou has hosted numerous international matches at a senior level, including two UEFA Champions League finals and the football competition at the 1992 Summer Olympics. It has also been the venue for several music concerts and cultural events. By its sixtieth birthday, Camp Nou had welcomed more than 80 million spectators. The stadium is one of the potential venues for the 2030 FIFA World Cup, which Spain is bidding to host.

While the previous Barcelona stadium was also officially named 'Estadi del FC Barcelona', both the old and the new stadia are invariably referred to by their unofficial name, Camp Nou. Nou is the Catalan word for 'new', and the stadium was so named because it replaced Barcelona's previous ground, Les Corts. This unofficial name caught on soon after the original stadium's construction, with fans and locals alike referring to it simply as El Nou ('The New'). Therefore, the stadium's common name became 'Camp Nou', which is often anglicized to 'New Field'. This translation, however, could be argued to be inaccurate, since Nou refers not to a 'field' but to the fact that this stadium was a new home for FC Barcelona when it was built, replacing the older Les Corts stadium.

Camp Nou was inaugurated on 24 September 1957. The stadium was designed by architects Francesc Mitjans and Josep Soteras, with the collaboration of Lorenzo García-Barbón, and it took about three years to complete. During this period, from 1954 to 1957, FC Barcelona still played their home games at Les Corts.

The capacity of Camp Nou has varied over the years, following several expansions and renovations. The original capacity was 93,053 seats, but expansions in the 1980s increased this to a peak of 121,749 for the 1982 FIFA World Cup. Subsequent renovations and changes to stadium safety regulations have reduced the capacity to its current level of 99,354, making it the largest stadium in Spain and Europe, and the third largest football stadium in the world in terms of capacity.

Over the years, Camp Nou has hosted numerous major matches at both club and international level. It has been the venue for numerous UEFA Champions League matches, including two finals, and has also hosted games for the Spanish national team. In addition to football matches, Camp Nou has also been the venue for major concerts and other events, including performances by artists such as U2, Bruce Springsteen, and the Three Tenors.

The ideal location, with excellent accessibility and ample space for future expansion, was identified in the west part of the Les Corts neighborhood. Being situated on the border between the Les Corts and La Maternitat i Sant Ramon neighborhoods, the new stadium was initially known as 'Estadio de Les Corts'.

It was always the club's goal to own both the stadium and the surrounding land, though initially, a lease was made on the municipal terrains, with a final buy-out occurring only in 1950. The plans for the sports complex had been drawn up as early as the late 1940s by Francesc Mitjans, a renowned architect.

Driven by the club's president, Agustí Montal Galobart, the associates coped with an increased fee for supporting the building costs for the new stadium, offered large donations, and some even went as far as to work themselves on the construction site on holidays or weekends. There was even a 'brick campaign', whereby large quantities of bricks were donated to the club.

The construction officially began on 28 March 1954. Less than three years later, and at a cost of 288,088,143 pesetas, on 24 September 1957 (a local holiday), a 90,000-capacity crowd filled the stadium for the inaugural match against Legia Warsaw.

'Camp Nou (1957)' (in Spanish). FC Barcelona: A comprehensive history of Camp Nou, officially named Nou Camp, a football stadium in Barcelona. https://www.fcbarcelona.com/

'Camp Nou (El Templo) – until 2003'. StadiumDB.com: Detailed description of Camp Nou's history and architectural design. http://www.stadiumdb.com/