Major Court Office Block, Budapest

Architect: Gergely Fernezelyi
Text: Péter Debreczeni
Photos: Tamás Bujnovszky

Back in the 18th century Városmajor and the street was a road for carts, flanked by houses with enclosed walls, typically wooded, with back gardens running up the hillside. As the street gradually became more urbanised, this duality was preserved, and although the single-storey buildings were later replaced by tenement houses, the back gardens were retained. Architect Gergely Fernezelyi tried to adapt to the environment as much as possible. The building was converted from the former office building of Pestterv. The current investor, BIF Plc, opted to preserve the original building structure and the designers sought to adapt to the existing site conditions, but the remaining structure was modified to meet the client’s requirements for a Class A office building. The building is divided into three separate wings, which are organised around the pre-existing courtyard, which has been transformed from a former car park into a fully-fledged courtyard with birch trees. The street and adjoining courtyard wing follow the configurations of the original building, all facades are of equal value, deliberately not obliterating the character of the old house. The wing facing the street has a two-storey steel-framed extension which provides views of the Castle and the surrounding Buda Hills. The pronounced horizontal divisions are unified by rhythmically organised vertical divisions, the resulting fields are resolved by finely turned lamellas and plant troughs. The third wing is a completely new construction to replace the demolished courtyard block standing next to it. A finely divided glazed corridor was created in the courtyard to connecting the main entrance on Városmajor Street with the new volume at the rear. Since the house has been built into the hillside, there is a two-level shift difference between the two entrances, which is partially offset by the corridor so that the difference is not noticeable and does not interfere with the functions of the house.

Client: BIF NYRT.
Architecture: FBIS architects
Architects: Dezső Tóth (1972), Gergely Fernezelyi DLA (2022)
Fellow architects: Viktor Annus, Tamás Abou Abdo, Anna Hertel, Imre Ferenc Szűcs, István Berkeczi, Kitti Grósz, Lilla Miskolczi, Erika Tőzsér
Interiors: Gergely Fernezelyi DLA, Anna Hertel, Imre Ferenc Szűcs, Kitti Grósz
Landscape: Nóra Geiger
Structure: István Kerek, Balázs Nyíri
HVAC: Edit Seres, Attila Bicskei
Electrical engineering: János Petkovics
Framework: Péter Handa
Fire protection: György Decsi
Environment protection, acoustics: Ervin Kanász-Szabó
Elevator: László Déri
Main contractor: DVM Group
Design & Build director: Gyula Malata