The Facelifting of March 15th Square in Budapest

Architect: Lajos Koszorú
Text: Anna Szabó
Photos: Tamás Bujnovszky

The total lack of tending and maintenance, the overwhelming intensity of motor vehicle traffic, the disproportionate dominance of land occupation and use for the purposes of car parking have resulted in so bad dilapidation in the square remodelled as a park with Roman ruins in 1968 that it has qualified it to be one of the developments included in the programme titled the Heart of Budapest („Pedestrian Inner City”). As projected and planned in it, March 15th Square is to be reconstructed in line with the mid-term constructions advanced by urban policy. The definition of the outward connections of the square and the guarantee of its communicating function between frequented and well-functioning regions shall in any case entail a revision of the traffic technique of the area concerned. However, in this case designers subordinated the method of presentig the remnants of a fort coming down to us from the Roman times to this respect. As a result, the northern pedestrian, recreational zone and the southern one separate from each other as far as traffic organization is concerned, with the latter including a deep garage to be constructed as a precondition for the decrease of traffic simultaneously with a significant degree of public road development to be realized in the next project phase.

Design: Lajos Koszorú – Város-Teampannon Kft., Ferenc Borsós – Közlekedés Kft., Ágnes Herczeg – Pagony Kft., Vivien Mlakár – Város-Teampannon Kft., Péter Zöldi – Város-Teampannon Kft., Lajos Skorka – Város-Teampannon Kft., Bálint Koszorú – Város-Teampannon Kft., Gábor Kruppa – KIMA Stúdió Kft., István Kenese – Kenese Kft., Olivér Szuromi – Közlekedés Kft., Albert Kancz – Közlekedés Kft., Ferenc Haász – ERCO Lighting, Péter Gyabronka – Város-Teampannon Kft., Emese Bunyik – Város-Teampannon Kft., Attila Bíró – KÉSZ Tervező Kft