HUNGARIAN NATIONAL MUSEUM, BUDAPEST

The National Museum, designed by Mihály Pollack, is one of our most important public buildings in the city centre. In symbiosis with the surrounding garden, it has been the site of significant historical events. Its reconstruction is a historical chance, responsibility, and obligation, for the building has become functionally outdated by the 21st century. The principal was seeking ways and opportunities of renewal by publishing an international open call for tenders. Our tender, which was ranked as the 3rd by the jury, suggested a more reasonably designed building that would be more transparent for the visitors too. In our plan, the basement would only host serving functions like repositories or rooms for the technical equipment and the staff. All the administrative offices, including meeting rooms, would be placed on the ground level. The first and second floors would only host exhibition rooms available for the visitors, which would offer a more rational visitor route, replacing the current, chaotic route. Finally, the restoration workshops would be located on the roof level, illuminated by flat roof windows. Apart from the horizontal transportation, the vertical one would also be transformed by our design. The main point is that visitors would use only the central staircase in the middle wing, whereas staff could access the various storeys through a back route, in the staff’s staircase. The courtyard would be covered by a double shell glass roof, providing the space of the court with diffused light in the inside, while also producing electric energy due to the solar panels built into the outside surface of the glass. The new functions necessary for the new museum would be hidden in two light-structured glass kiosks in the court, so the two buildings, each with a different character, would contain space for conferences and for the café, respectively, both opening into the existing court itself. Visitors could access them through the two new entrances opened under the existing porticus on the same level, although the main entrance of the building would stay in its current position. The new parking places necessary for the building would by placed underground, in the park in front of the building, so that the two ramps can be accessed from the two neighbouring side streets. These would also allow the hidden transportation of artefacts as well as the loading and unloading for economic purposes within the museum. The intervention would redesign the existing museum garden too, organising it into front, side, and back yards, where the existing statues can be exhibited in a concentrated way. The geometric garden would deliberately avoid recalling the historical garden as the new functions would appear with new features.

Reconstruction of the Hungarian National Museum, Budapest 
open architectural design competition, III. prize
client: MAGYAR NEMZETI MÚZEUM
year of the design: 2010 
volume: 10 000 m²