Budapest International Design Competition

This international art museum competition was taken place at Budapest, the capital city of Hungary. The project site is stretched along with Dózsa György Street in front of Millennium Park, which has fostered a culture of the people for a very long period of time. Their strong emotional bond with the park makes it a very special place.
Considering the specific shape and the rich historical background of the site, the museum should not only function as a place to learn art but also serve as a “learning gate” providing multiple passages leading people from one museum to the park and to the other museum, and also as a “cultural gate”, which is a key element to the urban sustainability. The architecture should not boast its existence at the park entrance and block the flow of various “cultures” overlapping at the park. In contrast to the beauty of Heroes’ Square based on architectural perspectives, we intend to express “the expanding beauty of abstract and organic form” along the length of Dózsa György Street and “the beauty of spatial depth” by overlapping transparent layers of people’s activities. Our idea is to construct a “cultural communication gate” where people and architecture are integrated in the park.

【Overall Sequence of Reconnecting the City to the Park, and Connecting the Park to the Underground Level 】

As a symbol for the “cultural communication gate,” we provide a footbath pond or “water surface” utilizing abundant local hot spring water, which is meant to counterbalance the abundant existing environment of the park. It absorbs chaos and stress of the city, and acts as a buffer zone to reconnect the city and the architecture. Two large wing like roofs touch the ground, one on the park side and another on the pond side. The overall sequence seamlessly connects all functions and symbols by reconnecting the city and the architecture at the water surface, connecting the architecture to the park with wing like roofs integrated into the landscape, and connecting the “sunken garden” to the underground level and integrate the park and the exhibition room.

The aboveground part is designed as the low rise organic and wavy form embracing friendly human scale space. The inviting entrance leads people inside, as moves on, as if walking into the forest. The transparent architecture visually reveals public activities such as people resting at a cafeteria, tourists relaxing at the footbath pond and people studying in the library, and it blends in as a part of the park. This unique architecture, which has “weakened” its existence so that it appears almost nonexistent against the city or the park, is positioned in the symmetrical layout to construct the symbolic and functional gate.

On the other hand, the exhibition room is situated on the basement floor, creating a “silent space” equipped with the controlled environment with perfect temperature, humidity and illuminance in contrast to the aboveground environment. The “sunken garden, ” serving as open air exhibition space and open air performance theater, is connected to the underground level and the exhibition room is designed as a part of the “underground forest” connecting to the park visually and physically.

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