Eco-Tourism Visitors’ Centre, Nagykörű

Architects: Henrik Hőnich†, Ádám Paládi-Kovács
Text: Eszter Götz
Photos: Tibor Zsitva

The architectural contest in 2009 was targeted at the building to host and serve a variety of tourist paths starting from the village in the Tisza region. The programme was unambiguous and rational: the visitors centre had to have a capacity to house as many tourist as a bus can hold, an office opening to the square, a lecture hall doubling as a classroom, a cloakroom, a café, water areas, benches outside where people can have a rest without being obliged to consume anything. Designers collected motifs all over the village that could be used later on in the new house in a revised form. A porch runs the full length of the facade of the building with a front staircase leading to the centrally positioned main entrance. On entering the building, we are faced with the steeply slanting open timbers which is the only and ruling ornament of the interior. Space was lent a sudden momentum: the back front bends in a dynamic arch to embrace a small yard, which is an intimate space divided from the car park: it features grassy rest areas, snack deck with benches, with huge chestnut trees in the background. Viewed from the building, all this is opened up through the full-length glass partition of the back front. The continuous arched interior offers free formation and finely adjusts to a variety of programmes hosted here: locals and visitors can use both the building and the yards, as the new function is not separated from the life of the village.

Architects: Henrik Hőnich†, Ádám Paládi-Kovács
Fellow architect: Balázs Szilágyi
Accessibility: Henrietta Szabó
Structure: Tamás Mantuano – POND Kft.
HVAC: János Werb
Electrical engineering: Péter Komm
Fire protection: László Szaladják
Kitchen technology: András Gauland