The world’s biggest bird statue goes to NFL from Hungary

According to index.hu, Gábor Miklós Szőke, the creator of the Fradi eagle in front of Groupama Stadium, was looked up on the internet by NFL’s Atlanta Falcons, who requested a bird statue for their new and gigantic stadium. It will be assembled twice, shipped across the ocean, and the whole team will fit under it.

Atlanta Falcons’ new, one and a half billion dollar stadium will be inaugurated in 2017, which is where one of the biggest sport events, the Super Bowl, will be held a few years later. The biggest bird statue at the stadium is designed by the Hungarian Gábor Miklós Szőke, who – among others – created the Fradi eagle.

Due to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium’s unique design, the arena will be quite spectacular in NFL: it will have an opening-closing roof structure that will look like the spreading and closing wings of a bird. At least they’re going for this illusion.

A huge stadium needs a monumental statue, which introduces the symbol and the eponym of the team, the falcon. Georgia State’s Savannah College of Art and Design was entrusted with the task to find the most suitable artist for this task. This is how Szőke came into the picture.

“The Savannah College of Art and Design looked me up about a year ago and asked me if I wanted to design a statue in front of the main entrance of the new Mercedes-Benz stadium. They asked this via email, because they heard and read about my work before. They visited us in a few weeks’ time and I showed them some of my works like the Fradi eagle and my horse statue standing in front of a huge Slovakian sport complex” said the artist.

His new work of art will be the world’s biggest bird statue, but the making of a statue this big is a complex job of a building industry scale.