PHOTOS: Construction of the New National Gallery in Budapest can start soon

In the past year, several buildings in the Városliget area have opened, such as the House of Hungarian Music and the new Museum of Ethnography. However, the Biodome and the New National Gallery have yet to be completed. Their planning pack has recently started to move towards planning permission.

A set of plans was launched in the official building permit system on 20 December 2022. According to 24.hu, the new building will house the combined modern art collections of the Museum of Fine Arts and the Hungarian National Gallery. Plans were finalised on 16 December.

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Photo: Print screen from YouTube video/
Liget Budapest

Finalised plans

The building will have 3 basement levels. The design of the four-floor building was commissioned by SANAA of Japan and Bánáti+Hartvig Architects back in 2015. Since then, a number of visual designs have been published but the final design has not been completed. If the Government Office approves the plans, construction work on the Petőfi Hall site could start this year.

Photo: Print screen from YouTube video/
Liget Budapest

In addition to the glass, the museum building will be dominated by limestone, fine concrete and fair-faced concrete surfaces.

“We will renegotiate the Liget project in public, renovate Városliget as a public park, and look for a new location for the museum buildings elsewhere,”

said Gergely Karácsony during the 2019 mayoral election, emphasising that the matter of Városliget is an important part of his programme. Even though the two parties failed to cooperate effectively, the planning of the Gallery continued. The cost, estimated at HUF 26 billion (EUR 66,500,833) in 2017, has risen to HUF 72 billion (EUR 184,156,153).

Photo: Print screen from YouTube video/
Liget Budapest

The plans call for the green roof of the building, which will have almost 200 bicycle parking spaces, to be decorated with rooftop terraces and plants. At its highest point, the building will rise 31 metres above ground level.

The fourth version of the New National Gallery

According to the building system, different versions have already been given the go-ahead several times: in 2018, 2019 and 2020. The fourth version was approved in 2022. This year, the government’s commitment to the project became clear after its victory in the parliamentary elections.

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Liget Budapest

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said at the inauguration ceremony of the new Ethnographic Museum:

“Europe’s biggest cultural investment must be fully completed. I feel that we have been given the authority to implement the whole programme.”

The Ministerial Commissioner for Works, László Baán, confirmed his statement. According to Baán, the only thing left to do is to call for procuring and construction can start in 2023.

In an interview with válaszonline.hu, Gergely Karácsony underlined that the debates were not over, and he would be surprised if the government had enough money to build the new building in the next two years.

Photo: Print screen from YouTube video/
Liget Budapest

Baán also spoke in July about the steady rise in the cost of the Liget project to hvg.hu, which by then had cost HUF 250 billion (EUR 639,482,250), due to more than 50 percent construction inflation in four years. In an interview with metropol.hu, he claimed that the New National Gallery and the Biodome could have been completed by now if the capital had not only been interested in political gain in the development of Városliget.

The new date for the inauguration of the building is planned for 2027-2028.

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Source: 24.hu, metropol.hu, hvg.hu