The values of the former buildings of the Hungarian Radio will disappear, the Pagoda will be there, but also several legendary studios
The plans of the Pázmány Péter Catholic University’s campus behind the Museum Garden thus join the trend of erasing an entire architectural era in recent years.
One and a half years ago – without any sign – the government announced that the Pázmány Péter Catholic University (PPKE) would leave its home in Piliscsaba and move to the block used by Hungarian Radio for many decades behind the Museum Garden. At the announcement of the relevant architectural design competition this spring, we went through the history of the buildings in the area, presenting the values that are likely to fall victim to the project – one of the first important achievements of modern Hungarian architecture after 1945, the Pagoda )) and places of media historical significance:
Three months later, in mid-July, the Secretary of State for the Development of Budapest and the Metropolitan Agglomeration, Balázs Fürjes The announcement reveals which of the twelve architectural firms and consortia can compete for the project, and on 11 November the results were made public.
In our article we analyzed KÖZTI and Hamburg C. Kft. visual designs made by your partner, showing their details.
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Dávid Vitézy / Facebook
The values of the former buildings of the Hungarian Radio will disappear, the Pagoda will be there, but also several legendary studios
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The future opening of the area facing Szentkirályi Street.
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The pictures revealed the following:
- The Miklós Ybl according to his plans, the Károlyi Palace, which was born in 1863 and burned down in 1944, will be completely renovated, but the fate of its once beautiful garden is still unknown.
- The central office building of the Radio facing the Museum Garden (intact. László Szende, György Fekete, Sándor Nánási, 1969) disappears without a trace, and the fate awaits the work of art on its façade and the two – storey studio (1952) considered to be atomic due to its several – meter – thick concrete walls.
- It became obvious that Bródy Sándor utca, 5–7, mentioned as the Studio Palace. (intact. Gedeon Gerlóczy, 1928), only the main facade and the street-facing tract remain, so the fate of the already mentioned Pagoda is uncertain.
- The three buildings on Szentkirályi Street belonging to the project area – including the former Hungarian Equestrian Association, Aladár Münnich One of the planned halves of the twin house and two neighbors, also born on Münnich’s planning table but partly remodeled by László Szende almost seventy years ago, will be demolished.
- One of the entrances and some paving stones and green areas will be located on the site of the modern cube with a glass façade facing Pollack Mihály tér.
Neither the pictures nor the details Dávid Vitézy, sem Balázs Fürjes His reports and pictures published on Facebook did not provide a satisfactory answer, so we turned to the Budapest Development Center (BFK) with our questions. As they wrote,
the area behind the Hungarian National Museum was three historic buildings, and an important aspect is to free Mihály Pollack Square and the palaces from the captivity of excessive construction after the legacy of socialist urban planning. The architectural design competition and its jury expected modesty and humility from the new building complex in order not to want the 19th century. to overcome century buildings.
According to the plans submitted by Hamburg C., new structures are being born well, the palaces that were already standing at the turn of the century really do not want to go upwards, but it is certainly not possible to say that maintains the balance achieved over many decades by the construction of a closed row, but also by the fact that it wants to resemble the Esterházy Palace in any way with its façade, except for its shade.
In a letter, the BFK confirmed our concerns about the Studio Palace, as it was revealed that the facade of the Studio Palace would remain (given that it was street-protected) and that the street wing would not disappear due to its poor condition. The dimensions and technical content of the new part of the building may be in the next detailed planning stage, so the plans will not reach their final condition until the first quarter of 2022.
Unfortunately, our conjecture about the Pagoda was confirmed, as the applicants had the opportunity to save it – the demolition was not a requirement, although it was not kept, it was not considered important by the winning applicant due to the lack of monument protection.
The retention of the Pagoda was considered necessary by a small number of applicants, but there were also those who “summoned” it in their application. Of the plans, a number of experts – the VIII. The jury, consisting of delegates from the district, capital and state chief architects, as well as the architects of MÉK, MÉSZ and other outstanding workers, decided unanimously, the selected project does not count with the help of the Pagoda.
They wrote.
The situation in the studios will follow the same principle – it would have been possible to save them, but they are not protected by storing information that has previously been published in many places. Although some of the applicants thought that they could spend more decades in the urban fabric, the winner did not reach this conclusion, so
The institution, launched by the government in 2020 and headed by Dávid Vitézy, gave a much more reassuring answer to the case of the Károlyi Palace, which preserves only a few original details behind its facades: further stages of planning are followed by restoration research and detailed wall excavations. as a home
in consultation with heritage protection, a chosen period will be reconstructed.
The question, of course, is exactly what this means, but it is certain that the finalization of the interior design plans will be the responsibility of the winning designers in this case as well, as will the landscaping plans. In other words, it has not yet been decided what will happen in the place of the palace’s garden, which was destroyed during the siege of Budapest, or even how the graphics will be transformed in Pollack Mihály Square, depicted with street furniture and a bicycle lane.
The letter also received good news for lovers of modern art, as the central office building, which was born in the second half of the 1960s, disappears, To József Somogyi (1916–1993) standing on the facade its floating female figure along with the seagulls surrounding it (1969), however, is planned to be saved along with other works of co-art in the block.
Of course, all this does not change the essence, as the situation is clear: during the project, demolitions that left a much larger environmental footprint and large construction projects won instead of renovating at least a part of the family building stock. Unsurprisingly, the decision contradicts the government’s projects launched in recent years, which have resulted in high-quality, salvageable, modern buildings being destroyed or about to be destroyed: the former diplomatic house in Trinity Square utilized building has been completely gutted in the past month.