In 1989, the People's Republic of Hungary was peacefully dissolved in favour of democracy and, after 50 years of communist rule, statues commemorating communist leaders and ideology began to fall. In Budapest, debates raged as to whether the city's toppled effigies should be destroyed and forgotten or preserved as a warning of the dangers of dictatorship. Hungary's new government decided to relocate the fallen statues to an old sports arena on the outskirts of Budapest, where they commissioned architect Ákos Eleőd to create an open-air museum, which opened in 1993.
