Swimming-pool in Budapest

Architect: László Benczúr
Text: Anna Szabó
Photos: Tamás Bujnovszky

The newly built swimming-pool of the capital in District 16 fits nicely into its garden city environment. The basic organizing principle of its overall design manifests itself in the slanting roof rising westward above the swimming-pool: it opens up the walls of the pool space to bathe the interior in light. With the horizontal mass being spiced up with this gesture, the harmony of the large panelled wainscotting and limestone reveal a gently simple architectural ideology thanks to the dynamics of the restrained play of the planes of the facades. The elaborated details do not get lost in the overgrowing chaos of ideas: they reinforce each other and thus serve the function instead. It is not the shape or form of openings which is focussed on, but the transparent or closed nature of the surfaces of the facades here. With its puritan appearance the swimming pool in Szentmihály is a reinterpretation of beauty for non-professinals, and because of the durable weatherpoof faceworks it is capable of fending off the adjectives „poor” or „rather minimalist”. The architect, László Benczúr decided to create architectural values that capture their users with their simplicity and thus encourage the development of sensitivity to visual culture.

Client: Bp. Főváros XVI. ker. Önkormányzat
General design: Benczúr & Partner Építész Kft.
Leading architect: László Benczúr
Architect: Viktória Simon
Fellow architects: Eszter Pálos, Ödön Hajnal
Structure: Zoltán Bencze
Installation: Géza Porosz
Electrical engineering: László Palai
Roads, landscape: Borbála M. Baló
Main contractor: EXCLUSIV –BAU
Pool technology: GARDA Uszodatechnika Kft.