Its design was entrusted to the then director of the Public Works Department, an American architect Stanley E. Jewkes who is said to have designed it on his home dining table outside his official working hours using only slide rules for calculations. According to Jewkes, the terraces would be able to accommodate 21,364 people, including 3,000 under cover, with access provided through 50 turnstiles. The stadium could be filled in 30 minutes and cleared in 10 minutes, via its 14 tunnel entrances.

Jewkes, a devotee to Le Corbusier's modernist philosophies, understandably applied modernist principles to the stadium design. Reinforced concrete, that signature of Brutalist architecture, was applied and this can be seen in the stairs, tiles and flooring. Strong curved elements in contrast to the horizontal and vertical elements is another hallmark, evident particularly in the undulating cantilevered roof that greets visitors at the main entrance of the stadium. 

As a nod to its context, Jewkes included local influences in the details such as Islamic geometric motifs which can be seen in the railings and metal partitions throughout the stadium. Vibrant colours such as red, green and yellow were also incorporated in the infrastructure to signify the country's multiculturalism.

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The stadium was constructed as an earthed amphitheatre, which means that a part of the stadium is below ground level, so as the workers dug out the site, they filled the sides with the earth.

Excess soil was transferred to the site of Masjid Negara, which was also being constructed at the same time. All 200,000 tonnes of earth was replaced by 10,000 tonnes of concrete and 700 tonnes of steel reinforcement.

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Budget constraint was an issue but that only led to ingenious solutions. Lightning towers were required so instead of importing special structural steel which would have been extremely expensive, the cheaper and more patriotic option was using monsoon drainpipes. Compressed paper and resin left over from wartime stockpiles were also upcycled to create a plastic-like material used as part of the roof sheeting. Upon completion, Stadium Merdeka held two world records: The tallest lighting towers at 140ft, and the biggest cantilever shell roofs.

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Although the stadium underwent a few renovations, it was threatened with demolition in the late 1990s to make way for a RM1 billion entertainment and office complex. However, it was rescued after the government earmarked it as a national heritage building in February 2003. In 2007, the stadium underwent massive renovations to restore it to its original 1957 look and is gazetted under the Antiquities Act 1976 as a national monument.

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