The Best Buildings of Hungary Award in 2020 – PHOTO GALLERY, VIDEOS
2020 was an unconventional year, to say the least. A lot of tragedies were crammed into this single year, and it was mostly about staying home to avoid the coronavirus pandemic and finding solutions to move your office to your living room. But art seems to have been impervious to this year’s hardships and was productive in these last twelve months since a whole host of works of art, books, and buildings have been created. Of these, you will now see the best residential and public buildings finished this year. In architecture, simple shapes and colours were dominant in 2020.
24’s original article can be found by clicking on the link. This year has been quite productive architectural designs-wise as the plans for a modern luxurious dormitory have just recently been released.
SA43 condominium, Budapest (designed by Noémi Varga and Balázs Szelecsényi)
The Buda Hills, i.e. the hilly areas of District 12 in Budapest, do not lack wonderful historical buildings, but next to the 19th- and 20th-century buildings, some modern ones can also find their perfect place. The panoramic SA43 in Buda is an excellent example of this. The thoughtful design culminates in an unusually grey, glazed ceramic façade which is intensified by the shutters. The building, designed by Noémi Varga (Numbernow) and Balázs Szelecsényi, hides five flats that can be connected on each floor and are supported by a reinforced concrete staircase. The condominium got a simple white interior.
Church of Pope Saint John Paul II, Páty (designed by Robert Gutowski)
Designing a church is not an easy task. The typical forms created in recent centuries are deeply rooted in the minds of most people, and they are not easy to overwrite. But after WWII, as modernism started spreading, it became clear that there is no such thing that is impossible, so today, in Hungary, there are numerous modern church buildings inspired by the principles of Bauhaus and European architecture after WWII.
Robert Gutowski’s church in Páty is one such example. It was designed between 2004 and 2007 but was only completed this year. It bears the name of Pope John Paul II. The building, which evokes the fortified churches and the arches of Gutowski’s master, Dezső Ekler, is both modern and respectful of tradition, and this might be the source of its attractiveness.
Havana Hetivásár (Havana Weekly Fair), Budapest (designed by Ferenc Keller, Barnabás Láris, Modulárt Kft.)
Marketplaces have undergone a major transformation in Hungary in recent years, not only in their inventory but also in terms of their architectural quality. Farmers’ markets have become quite popular over the past few years, and so buildings that have been neglected for decades are now being modernised. In 2018, Újpest received a new market hall integrated with a cultural centre (built by Zoltán Bun), and this year, the 6,000-apartment Havana housing estate (1977–1985) received a building complex called the Havana Hetivásár (Havana Weekly Fair).
It is just that: a simple row of stores, fitting next to an existing row of garages, covered with a concrete strip soaring into the sky at the end, next to which there is a square. On the square, there is an enlarged still life of Béla Kondor, but there is space for stalls to be set for the weekend.
The bus station at Szivárvány Street, Budaörs (designed by Intramuros)
When you think of a city bus station, you usually think of an old building with a shabby waiting room and a few numbered bus stops, but it can be more than that, as Intramuros has proved. They showed that they can design not only a surprisingly nice gas station (it is also in Budaörs) but also an exciting new bus station.
Squeezed between shopping malls and residential tower blocks built in the ‘70s, the pavilion stands out from its surroundings with its simplicity and colour scheme, as well as the huge numbers at each bus stop with which they also solved the problem of finding the bus you need. And the pedestrian traffic flows uninterrupted in an environment that has also been transformed by the architectural firm, also minimising the chances of accident-prone situations by smart solutions that direct pedestrians properly.
Timpex Arena, Nyíregyháza (designed by Dezső Ekler)
Seeing the previous contenders of the list, it becomes clear that 2020 was all about simple shapes. Dezső Ekler’s building might seem like a totally uninteresting 2,400 m2 riding school for Nyíregyháza, but the Timpex Arena is much more than that; under a strip window surrounding the red brick building crowned with a long gable roof, the building is dented, giving the façade an interesting playfulness.
Featured image: facebook.com/sa43tarsashaz
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Source: 24.hu