This is how the City Park will look like in 2019 – VIDEO

According to origo.hu, the winner of City Park’s landscape architectural contest was announced. They plan on planting more than a thousand new trees and establishing a two kilometre running track.

The Városliget Inc. invited entries for the application in the end of last year with the aim of renovating the historic buildings of the City Park and boosting the park to a 21^st century level. Besides the renewal of the park, old buildings will be renovated and new ones will be constructed like the Museum of Ethnography, which we had previously reported on. The renovation of the park will cost 15 billion forints and it concerns the renewal of the park’s functions, the expansion and rehabilitation of its flora. The initiation is unique in Hungary as so much money has never been spent on the renovation or the establishment of a public park.

All in all seven landscape architectural offices entered the application, which means that almost 50 landscape architects, gardeners, vehicular professionals and architects worked on the applications. The professional jury chose the plan of Garten Studio Kft. with one consent. For the rest, the jury awarded all plans and distributed 32 million forints among the contestants.

The jury mainly chose Garten Studio Kft. because they designed freely manageable spaces and had a great attitude towards the historic elements of the park, thus towards the original plan which was dreamed by Heinrich Christian Nebbien. Moreover, they designed great recreational opportunities and minimalised the amount of concrete covered locations. They also plan on making the City Park accessible for everyone.

The City Park is almost 200 years old and has been decaying in the past couple of years. Besides the neglected buildings the flora became quite frowsy and families now have very few opportunities to relax or spend their free time actively. Before the application, Városliget Inc. asked the opinion of many organisations, institutions and locals. They asked schools, elderly’s homes, cyclists, dog keepers, families and green organisations how they would change the park. The majority of these civilian ideas were incorporated into the application, thus into the winner plan.

In their video we can see how the Károly Kós walk will look like and how the Petőfi Hall will change into the new National Gallery. Probably the Transport Museum will go through the most spectacular transformation. They will also be reconstructing the Olof Palme House and establishing a rosary in front of it. The House of Hungarian Music will be constructed in the place of Hungexpo’s sleazy offices.

Currently, the green zones form 60% of the City Park, buildings the 5%, and the other 35% are concreted roads and parking lots. According to the plans of Garten Studio Kft, the rate of green zones will be increased by 5%. The Liget Budapest Project destines long-term sustainability for the park so the attendance of 600 ill trees is a primary aspect. The winner project plans on planting 1000 new trees and of course tending to them permanently. The works will be started in 2017 and expected to be finished in 2019.