On the tender for the Museum of Fine Arts extension
In memory of Péter Reimholz
MúzeumCafé 14.
Major renovation of Budapest’s Museum of Fine Arts, which opened in 1906, got underway in 1985. Besides making the usual plans for technical refurbishment, the task of architect István Mányi was to find space in the building for the expanded functions of the museum, for storerooms, restoration studios, workshops for building maintenance and for preparing exhibitions, as well as to create team rooms, since the number of museum staff had grown twenty-fold. As shown by Miklós Mojzer’s study about the renovation published in Art History Bulletin in 1994, the management’s primary aim was to keep the museum in operation. A new library was built in nearby Szondi Street, to the joy of some art historians and university students, but to the sorrow of those art historians who were working in the museum. Underneath the vestibule overlooking Heroes’ Square and the ground-floor halls, which echo Greek temples, new exhibition rooms and cloakrooms, as well as a bookshop and café were created – the original building designed by Albert Schickedanz did not include these elements. The recent successes of large-scale exhibitions organised by the Museum of Fine Arts has demonstrated that a new audience for the fine arts exists in Budapest. Furthermore, it soon became apparent that this kind of programme can be further implemented only by extending the building and that the appropriate place for doing that is underground, in front of the museum in Heroes’ Square. It also soon transpired that financing this exceeded the capacities of the country’s cultural authorities and that the precondition of early implementation was to dovetail with one of the European Union’s development projects. In 2004 István Hiller, the education and culture minister, requested the Cultural Heritage Field Service to present an outline concerning what would be an appropriate installation for the planned functions, while simultaneously highlighting the relevant technical requirements and the financial needs. The project office established in the museum and the leading architect of the Field Service, Zsolt Szécsi, first made a pilot study, which was then developed into a construction permit plan. That was the basis of the government’s decision taken in spring 2007 to include the extension of the Museum of Fine Arts in the projects sponsored by the European Union. It should be remarked that only one other single project is being implemented in the present cycle of EU sponsorship, namely renovation of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music. The proposed technical solutions were deemed positive; however, the architectural design was more problematic. So the directors of the museum and the Cultural Heritage Field Service set up an art council to resolve the issue. They and the members of the council (István Eltér, Sándor Fegyverneki, Péter Reimholz and Ferenc Dávid, the author of this article) were in agreement in asking for designs from the following architects: Mihály Balázs, Ferenc Bán, István Ferencz, István Janáky, Tamás Karácsony, István Mányi and Zsolt Vasáros. The aim was to create an exhibition area, lecture hall, rooms for creative sessions, a restaurant and café, a museum shop, a vestibule with cash-desks and cloakroom, as well as sanitary units totalling some 1000-1100 square metres; in addition, to resolve the tasks connected to works of art arriving for exhibitions, to design the connection with Heroes’ Square, as well as the old and new parts of the museum, and to create a special image for the extension so it would complement both Heroes’ Square and the old building of the museum. Ferenc Bán’s design focuses on implementing a major extension of the museum on the ground. His glass crystal occupies a rear part of Heroes’ Square and creates an entity there. He connects it with a glass corridor leading to the main stairway. István Mányi’s and Tamás Karácsony’s designs react most precisely to the fact that the large portico of the museum is the central part of the architectural composition and will remain so, even if the museum extension necessitates another entrance. Both envisage a tower-like structure, which includes the entrance to the new part. This is designed at a corner, which those coming from the city centre would encounter first. These two designs clearly and simply react to the multiple content of the project, namely that a major part be accessible for visitors to Heroes’ Square, including the cash-desks from where they can move on to the museum, whether the temporary exhibition in the extension itself or the old building. The architectural emphasis of other plans focussed on either the front or the rear of the portico and the main ceremonial staircase, i.e. areas to one side of the square. In these plans the focus, although different, is also on a less emphatic space.