Take a look at the future National Circus Arts Centre in Budapest!

A mock-up of the National Circus Arts Centre, source: kormany.hu

As Europe’s leading centre for circus arts, Hungary is hosting the world’s first scientific conference on circus buildings. A model of the National Circus Arts Centre building was also presented at the conference.

Between 12 and 17 January, the XIV. Budapest International Circus Festival takes place at the Budapest Grand Circus. As an overture, organisers held a scientific and professional conference on circus buildings at the Museum of Fine Arts on Wednesday. Several foreign circus arts experts took part in the conference.

The mock-up of the circus building named Csodagömb (Magic Globe). Source: Zoltán Balogh/MTI

The conference and the exhibition

As PestBuda reported, participants had the chance to learn about the history of circus buildings in Europe. What is more, organisers opened an exhibition in the Baroque Hall of the Museum of Fine Arts to mark the occasion.

At this exhibition, participants could observe a mock-up of the National Circus Arts Centre. The building will be under construction next to Nyugati Railway Station in the near future. Visitors could also get to know the new circus building and the artists’ training institute that will be built as part of the Circus Arts Centre.

“For the first time in the world, Hungary, as Europe’s leading centre of circus arts, is hosting a scientific conference on circus buildings and a conference on circus education,”

shared Péter Fekete, State Secretary for Culture and Chairman of the Organising Committee of the Budapest International Circus Festival.

About the National Circus Arts Centre

The government adopted a decision to build the Centre as an investment of key national economic importance in February 2021.

The new Circus Arts Centre will have the following parts: a new circus building and an artist training school. The former will be built on a long-vacant site next to Nyugati Railway Station, and the latter will be converted from an old railway hangar.

Kornél Almássy, Director of the Hungarian Museum of Architecture, said the following about the exhibition:

“With the help of numerous models, blueprints, maps, and other documents, as well as works of art, the exhibition reviews the history of Hungarian circus art and architecture and also looks to the future of the National Circus Arts Centre.”

As we wrote in one of our previous articles, many of the world’s top circus performers view Hungary as a refuge. The reason for this is that all over the world, circuses closed due to the pandemic situation. However, they remained open in Hungary.