Pünkösdfürdő Park, Budapest

Landscape architect: Adrienn Szalkai
Text: Zsuzsa Schäffer
Photos: József Hajdú

On March 22, World Water Day, the Pünkösdfürdő Park in the northern end of Buda was handed over. The 7-hectare recreation park was the Municipality’s own investment, and FŐKERT was also responsible for its planning and implementation. A total of 685 trees and thousands of shrubs and perennials were planted on the grassy side of the dam. The idea of a leisure park to be built at the same time as the rehabilitation came up already in 2018, but the facility handed over this year was not realized according to the plans at the time. Through public consultations, forums, and the inclusion of the opinions of locally active civil teams, the neighborhood has become richer with a recreation park with far fewer sports fields and paved surfaces and far more green areas. The main consideration was that it is a park on the edge of the city, where people visit precisely for the experience of being close to nature. Its elongated location gave the opportunity for the functions to be well separated from each other, those who want to relax, do sports and play, and picnickers can all use the park in separate zones, without disturbing each other. The individual zones are connected by the barrier-free walkway running in the middle. The names of the individual areas evoke aquatic life forms.