Although physical education began to enter modern Thai education since the reign of King Rama V, "the people" were still not the ultimate focus. It can be seen that the sports fields or sports clubs built during that period were mainly limited to use by the upper class. Later, in the late period of the absolute monarchy, the idea of body-building and physical training began to become more of an activity to enhance masculinity in the early 1930s, with the establishment of private gyms or "physical training facilities" in 1930. However, the concept of physical education truly reached the majority of the people concretely only after the 1932 revolution, as part of the nationalism ideology of the People's Party. For example, the government of Phraya Phahol Phonphayuhasena (1933-1938) had a policy to create a new society through education to develop youth into "citizens in a constitutional system" with morality, intelligence, thoughts, and both physical and mental strength by promoting physical education. Similarly, the subsequent government during the era of Field Marshal Plaek Phibunsongkhram (1938-1944) emphasized nation-building through the strong and healthy bodies of citizens, through educational curricula, the transmission of values through modern art, as well as the construction of spaces for exercise and sports fields.
Two years after the establishment of the "Department of Physical Education" under the Ministry of Dharmakan on December 9, 1933, Captain Luang Supachalasai, the Director-General of the Department of Physical Education, had the idea to create a mega sports project to help drive the policy of the People's Party. That was the construction of the "National Stadium," the first public sports field for the people, on the area that was once Windsor Palace (but never had the status of a palace because Prince Mahavajirunhis, the owner of the palace, passed away before he could reside in this palace). At that time, the area was under the care of Chulalongkorn University and was used as Horwang School. The construction of the stadium began on February 10, 1937, and was completed in 1941 (but the stadium was first used in the annual men's public athletics competition in 1938). The stadium included a standard-sized grass football field with an outer running track, a 20-tier western grandstand with a cantilevered roof covering the entire length without supporting columns, and an equally 20-tier northern grandstand. Outside the stadium, at the top of the left and right pillars of the central portico, there were large high-relief sculptures depicting Phra Phol Bodee riding the Airavata elephant, the emblem of the Department of Physical Education, reflecting the modern art of the People's Party era that emphasized the muscles of Phra Phol Bodee and the elephant. At the far left and right edges, flanked by two towers, there were gates on both sides. The eastern gate was called the Elephant Gate, and the western gate was called the Rooster Gate.
This stadium, which Thai people commonly refer to as "Supachalasai Stadium" or "National Stadium," underwent a major renovation in 2008 on its 70th anniversary. The renovation included a front porch decorated with a miniature model of the Grand Palace, and the front of the entrance portico designed to resemble Windsor Palace in the United Kingdom, linking to the palace of Prince Mahavajirunhis that once stood on the site (the royalists have always attacked the People's Party, saying they "demolished the palace to build a stadium"). Similarly, in the following decades, there were attempts by the royalists to collect signatures to request changing the name of this stadium to "Prince Mahavajirunhis Stadium," in line with the trend of renaming places that had connections with the People's Party in the past to convey the meaning of the return of royalist ideas. Currently, the National Stadium (the name has not been changed yet) has a capacity of 19,793 seats. In addition to being a stadium that has hosted national and international sports competitions according to its function, this venue has also been used for large-scale national events and ceremonies several times, such as the venue for Michael Jackson's Dangerous World Tour concert (1993), the papal mass during the official visit to Thailand by Pope Francis (2019), and most recently, the Blackpink World Tour concert (2023).