The missed future of Budapest at the exhibition of the Transport Museum
Even if it seems paradoxical at first, poverty is often a blessing in the history of a city’s development. Compared to many wealthier European cities, it is very fortunate that in the last century, Budapest did not receive public money for the implementation of many ill-considered plans, which may have seemed reasonable at a given moment, but would have caused new problems in the long run. But let’s not celebrate our decades spent in poverty! The other face of lack of money is that we simply want to get from one point of the city to another without a nervous breakdown.
We can find examples of both in the exhibition “Budapest that was not built”, the creators have collected the most exciting backward transport development ideas of the past century into a bouquet. In the Kőbányai út hall of the former Ganz Északi Járműjavító, which preserves its factory atmosphere almost intact, in addition to some locomotives, the museum’s latest acquisitions were also exhibited: stationary and undergoing restoration Ikarus, Csepel trucks, a 1926 T Ford and the street scene of the decades of socialism. some oldtimers. The exhibition “Budapest was not built” is located in the corner of the huge factory hall. This modesty is understandable, because although the topic itself is extremely promising, the realized exhibition is unfortunately somewhat disappointing. The reason for this is probably the small budget. Not an animation anywhere, not a hint of creative audiovisual visual elements. From the fact that we receive reading material printed on screens accompanied by archival images, visual plans and site plans, it is easy to feel as if we are looking at an enlarged brochure. It may seem unnecessary to go to an exhibition for such an experience. Reading the otherwise well-collected, thought-provoking texts could also be done with the help of the museum. For the sake of the old locomotives and cars on display, the children’s families accordingly think that they will just run through the exhibition, at most a grandparent’s glance will catch half in a few archival photos.
It’s a pity, because the selected dozens of unrealized transport development plans, together with their fate, really bring us closer to understanding the structural transport problems of today’s city.
Right there is the plan for the Gellért Mountain cable car, which the Budapesti Hírlap wrote in 1898 that it was the victim of a fight between the government and the capital. And connecting Budapest’s dead-end main stations with railway tunnels is not a new idea either, as the famous civil engineer, the father of reinforced concrete structures, Szilárd Zielinski, wrote an article about the need for this in the Pesti Napló as early as 1898, and then presented his idea four years later – complete with a high-speed rail network – in his doctoral in his dissertation.
Just as the connection of the northern and southern HÉV lines under the Danube – in which he once again appeared in the list of wishes – would have become a reality already eight decades ago, if the war had not intervened. However, if the metro plans of the Rákosi era imitating the Moscow patterns had been made, then today we would be able to enjoy in unadulterated imperial socialist real stations the kneaded upper bodies of shirtless metal workers, who would scan the red horizon shoulder-to-shoulder with tractor girls.