How will it be constructed?
The Liget Budapest International Architectural Design Competition
MúzeumCafé 46.
Not for a hundred years has an architectural design competition been announced in Hungary that has attracted such significant international and domestic interest. The aim of the open competition was to offer the opportunity for architects to demonstrate what kind of museum buildings could be constructed in Budapest’s City Park. The competition, involving total prize money of 870,000 euros, was advertised worldwide on 27 February last year by the Museum of Fine Arts and Városliget Ltd., which is responsible for realising the project. By the time of the submission deadline 470 entries had been received, which were then judged in two stages by a jury of Hungarian and international museum and architecture specialists. The result was announced in December. Tender competitions are a well-established means of selecting an architect. Architects and designs for major buildings were chosen by competition. On the basis of prize-winning plans submitted for a competition concerning location, which closed in 2013, the project’s directors determined where the new buildings would be situated in the City Park. The designs involved five buildings and six institutes (the New National Gallery and the Ludwig Museum in one building, the Museum of Ethnography, the House of Hungarian Music, the Hungarian Museum of Photography and the Hungarian Museum of Architecture). Besides the new buildings, an important element of the Liget Budapest project concerns comprehensive development of the park itself, for which a design competition is expected to be issued in the middle of this year. The task of the winner will be to cooperate with the designers of the new buildings and plan the overall regeneration of the park.