Helsinki Olympic Stadium in the context of Töölö

In architecture, functionalism is the principle that buildings should be designed based solely on their purpose and function. An international functionalist architecture movement emerged in the wake of World War I, as part of the wave of Modernism. Its ideas were largely inspired by a desire to build a new and better world for the people, as broadly and strongly expressed by the social and political movements of Europe after the extremely devastating world war. In this respect, functionalist architecture is often linked with the ideas of socialism and modern humanism.

A new slight addition to this new wave of architecture was that not only should buildings and houses be designed around the purpose of functionality, architecture should also be used as a means to physically create a better world and a better life for people in the broadest sense. This new functionalist architecture had the strongest impact in Czechoslovakia, Germany, Poland, the USSR and the Netherlands, and from the 1930s also in Scandinavia and Finland.

Olympic Stadium is the name usually given to the main stadium of an Olympic Games. An Olympic stadium is the site of the opening and closing ceremonies. Many, though not all, of these venues actually contain the words Olympic Stadium as part of their names, such as stadiums in Amsterdam, Berlin, Helsinki and Paris. Olympic Stadium may also be named a multi-purpose stadium which hosts Olympic sports.

In the case of the Summer Olympic Games, athletics competitions and the football final are traditionally held in the Olympic Stadium. Exceptions to this have occurred though at the 1900, 1996, 2012, 2016, and 2024 Summer Olympics as well as at the 2010 and 2018 Summer Youth Olympic Games.

The 1957 Bandy World Championship was contested among three men's bandy playing nations and was the first ever Bandy World Championship. Norway declined to take part due to the Soviet invasion of Hungary in November 1956.

The championship was played in Finland from 28 February to 3 March 1957, as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations for the Ball Association of Finland, which at the time was the governing body for bandy in Finland. The tournament was officially opened by President of the republic Urho Kekkonen. All three games of the tournament were played at the Helsinki Olympic Stadium. The Soviet Union became champions.

The 10th World Championships in Athletics (Finnish: Yleisurheilun maailmanmestaruuskilpailut 2005, Swedish: Världsmästerskapen i friidrott 2005), under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), were held in the Olympic Stadium, Helsinki, Finland (6 August 2005 – 14 August 2005), the site of the first IAAF World Championships in 1983. One theme of the 2005 championships was paralympic events, some of which were included as exhibition events. Much of the event was played in extremely heavy rainfall.

The 10th (X) European Athletics Championships were held from 10 August to 15 August 1971 in the Olympic Stadium of Helsinki, the capital of Finland. Contemporaneous reports on the event were given in the Glasgow Herald.

The 16th European Athletics Championships were held from 7 August to 14 August 1994 in the Olympic Stadium of Helsinki, Finland.