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In Budapest, houses can share their story
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In Budapest, there is a festival on every week-end, but for the article’s writer on origo.hu, has its favourite: the Budapest 100 program series. It has started five years ago made by some enthusiastic young people and this cheerful event is still continuing ever since. In March, the programs which were held in the week-end showed different places which could be entered by public, such as the former telephone center, an elegant store or the building where Liza, the Fox Fairy was filmed.
In 2011, the OSA’s (Open Society Archives) building on the AranyJánosstreet has become 100 years old which used to be the Goldberger’s textile factory financial and designer center. The young workers of the archive wanted to remember the event a little different as the previous years. They did not wanted to organize boring exhibitions and shows; rather, they wanted something which could be interesting not only for the archive workers but to the rest of the audience, too.
Residents first did not understand, why their house is interesting
They had decided to look for some 400 year-old buildings in the capital and they opened it to the public. After they have started looking, they realized that the repertoire is much bigger than they had expected: in that year more than a hundred building had been built and most of them still stand.
They looked for the residential communities, from which most of them gladly approved the idea and in a couple of weeks they have organized the tours of the buildings and the picnics. The preparations happened in a short time and the lack of proper advertisement does not reflect the interest in the programs: thousands have appeared at the open buildings to examine old houses from the bottom to the top and to know their history or to talk with its residents. From this, there were no stopping, this year they have gathered together the list of old buildings for the fifth time.
Even though the organization is more developed than the previous years, the Budapest 100 has remained a cheerful non-profit event. All of the programs are free: to look for the building’s history, to get permission from the residents and to organize the walks are made by more than 200 volunteers.
Sometimes, when a visitor fell in love with the organization, he or she applies as a volunteer next year to spend weeks in an archive to figure out the history of a certain building. The organizers enjoy it, the audience happy and the residents are grateful. The organizers aim is not only to draw attention to the buildings around us but to improve the relationships between residents, and between the residents and visitors, too.
In the beginnings, residents needed to be talked into opening their gates to the public, however, these days they are more involved: they are also collaborating and look for the history of the building or sometimes they make improvised photo exhibitions. At first, they did not understand why their old building is so interesting which had never been lived by a famous people: but sometimes it was enough to convince one person who convinced the others to show around the visitors.
As it is not the same city
On every program it was obvious that the visitors and residents were from various age-groups. The programs vary from concerts to picnics or to fashion shows: this is a true family event where everyone find his or hers source of fun; from the children to the grandparents. Also, it was noticeable that everyone was calm and open. A lot of times visitors had to wait in narrow staircases for their turn but no one were in a hurry or hustle; as if we weren’t in the city, where sometimes we have a life and death struggle for a seat in the metro.
Due to the World War I, a lot of houses has been disappeared for its 2015 jubilee; because of that, the organizers decided to involve not only the houses which were already in the program but also the ones which were not approved it in the first place but they had come around by this time. The ‘hundred year’ is a wide term, anyway, because of the lack of precise recordings,some buildings are registered hundred years ago but some had its foundation stone put hundred years ago or the building’s handing over happened a century ago.
This year’s interest has outdone the previous years. For the most popular walks, it had to be pre-registered and the spots had been filled up in a couple of minutes. There were so many programs that there was a need to a make serious route plan, as it was a plan for the holidays.
From the telephone centre to the court
For the writer of the article, the most amazing walk happened on Saturday morning. It was in the old telephone centre, which is on the HorváthMihálysquare and there used to work 240 postwomen. For some reason, the writer is attracted to the immense, ruined squares which he used to enjoy on his castle tours but he also he found it here.