Design Tours Exploring the Treasures of Budapest, 27 Sept – 6 Oct

Design Tours are traditionally very popular features of Budapest Design Week, so organised between 27th September and 6th October, the festival asked some renowned city tour organisers to join the jubilee program series. The Hungarian, English and Italian language tours help us experience the amazingly colourful, exciting world of Budapest, and how the inhabitants of the city strive to preserve the century old memories, while also changing their city to fit the new ways of urban living.

The first of the weekend design tours organised by Budapest Design Week invites us to explore the amazing diversity of formative and decorating materials, and methods used on the facades of the city with the guidance of Pál Ritoók art historian, then Péter Török landscape-architect points at the rather close and special relationship between architecture and space. During the tour led by Máté Millisits art historian we can explore the most beautiful cast iron relics of the capital, while we can learn about the outstanding graves of the Salgótartján Street Jewish Cemetery with the help of Tamás Csáki art historian, also telling a lot about the art of the era and at the same time about Jewish culture.

Budapest100, the celebration of 100-year-old buildings selected from the most popular industrial venues to introduce the capital’s energy resources. Organised by Balázs Maczó (Miénk a ház!), the tour of the Kelenföldi Thermal Power Station guides us from the turbines to the control room, while we can visit the Water Tower on Margaret Island with the guidance of Enikő Tolnay-Pálóczy art historian (Budapest100) and walk in the Óbuda Gas Works with Éva Beleznay, the former chief architect of Budapest.

budapestUNDERGUIDE organises tours in Hungarian, English, and even in Italian. The BUDapest-MILan tour exploring the style-relations between Italy and Hungary invites us to discover the masterpieces designed and created by our Southern friends. The Only Special!!! tour shows buildings and works of art that made the public and the contemporary artists outrage.

The Hungarian and English language walk of BUPAP introduces a special side of the city: the most exciting and colourful representations of street-art are discovered on the walls of buildings, on the doors of abandoned buildings, on empty shop-windows. A walk about an art that asks sensitive questions, confronts urbanites with the problems of the city.

The Sightseeing by Night and by Bike tour of Cruise All Night is organised for those who have (or will) see the traditional sights of Budapest and would like a bit more, a bit different. During Budapest Design Week four special architecture tours are organised that are led by knowledgable architects and introduce some of the treasures of modern Hungarian architecture.

Europa Design also invites for a night tour: in their Night of Offices bus tour participants can visit buildings and offices with the guidance of architecture and interior design critics, and local experts.

The tours organised by Tandem Budapest explore the city by tandem bicycles. The leader of the Blind Budapest and Design tour is a blind or partially sighted person showing how he/she ‘sees’ city, the photography tour takes participants to the most popular sights where they can take the most non-typical photos with the expert advise of a professional photographer. The Tandem Gastro Tour visits some Italian restaurants of the city, where – in accordance with the 2013 topic of Budapest Design Week – Italian cuisine is the focus, from appetizer to coffee, from checkered tablecloth to pizza plates.

We Love Budapest and Hosszúlépés. Járunk? organise city walks introducing the less known or brand-new places of Budapest from an unusual perspective. The From Kitsch to Cool walk visits the Four Tiger market of Józsefváros, while the Street-food walk explores the venues of the Hungarian street-gastro revolution, where hamburger is culinary and the paper box is design. Organised in cooperation with the Budapest Transport Center, the Municipality of Budapest and the DBR Metro Project Directorate, the Design on the Move tour visits the the stations of metro 4 touches upon travellers’ information systems and the curiosities of visual communication as well.

Registration for the tours is obligatory!
Further information: www.designweek.hu/DesignTours

Source: designweek.hu