How much will the extension of the Museum of Fine Arts change the well-known view of Heroes’ Square?
MúzeumCafé 14.
Mihály Ráday, art historian, Founder of the Budapest Urban Protection Association: The square’s image was formed only with the 1938 Eucharistic Congress. Previously it was a park with a fountain. The City Park used to be wider, at the side and to the rear of the Kunsthalle. Much of that disappeared with concreting alongside Aréna Road to make it suitable for political parades. So the square as known today is not very old. To change half of it is incorrect and inadmissible. It would make sense only after reviewing the functions of the whole space, its role in history, as well as its present life. That would be correct, even though today’s view of the square dates back not centuries but only decades. Still, we greatly appreciate it.
József Őrfi Architect, journalist: Instead of the landscaped area by the museum there will be a surface with glass slots and illuminated courtyards. The museum stairs will be cut into and a rectangular glass structure will stand on the Dózsa György Road side. Some ten trees and a couple of bushes will disappear. That loss is painful, but then the entire main façade will be visible. Albert Schickedanz designed a Classicist entrance for the museum, with stairs, a majestic line of tall columns fronting the façade, and a tympanum. Tamás Karácsony is thinking differently. What will happen when people walk around the building, hopefully not encountering the wooden booth with its corrugated roof and the fenced-off museum parking lot.
Mihály Vargha Architect, editor-in-chief of Architects’ Forum: I’m not afraid of the square loosing something. Tamás Karácsony is a guarantee, having won the commission with his colleagues via a tender. Construction has not yet begun, though completion is promised for 2010. Plans were approved, but implementation was hindered by red tape. When ready, the whole country will benefit. After all, one of Budapest’s most important tourist attractions is the end of Andrássy Avenue. It’s another matter that there is no long-term plan for modernisation of the area, though ideas existed years ago about underground parking and visitors’ service units for Heroes’ Square and/or Dózsa György Road. The lack of such plans cannot be overlooked. The new extension will only partially compensate for this omission.
Tamás Mezős Architect, president of the National Office of Cultural Heritage: Those concerned for the unity of Heroes’ Square may not have stood or imagined standing at the axis, looking towards the column supporting the Archangel Gabriel. The façades of the Kunsthalle and the Museum of Fine Arts are so far from the central axis that the two buildings only appear on the periphery. From the axis and looking left, the ‘glass cube’ will only hide the museum’s western projection. Time will tell whether what we think is right today is correct. Yet responsibility for a review of the entire square, its role and its significance for tourism, cannot be neglected. In resolving that task the elements of the visitors’ centre in Heroes’ Square will be taken into account as something to be kept, or perhaps re-thought.