Castle Museum, Visitors’ Reception Building, Szigetvár

Architect: Péter Koch
Text: Tamás Ulrich
Photos: Tamás Bujnovszky

The new reception building is a characteristic work of the 21st century, separated from its environment as a floating spatial sculpture which does not even wish to adjust to the architectural eclecticism of styles of the castle itself. Actually, there is nothing to adjust to, as the castle today has nothing from the historical period: it was destroyed during the Turkish siege in the 1600s, it was blown up and ruined. The 450 years that have passed since then saw several reconstructions, the ramparts and then the memorial mosque of Suleiman II were rebuilt by the Turks in the yard, which has evolved into a significant monument of Turkish history, architecture and culture. The new reception building made for visitors is a simple and clear-cut structure, a large entirely glazed floating rectangle, which is only connected via a fine glass bottleneck to the structure of the mosque from the Turkish times – to the old museum, and seemingly it is only attached to the ground via a ramp. The main entrance to the museum was also moved here, with a pedestrian ramp flanked by an elegant reinforced glass balustrade which is easy and comfortable to walk along up to the raised level of the building. The reception area hosts a ticket-office, the reception and a souvenir shop, and this is where the interactive, multilingual, contemporary multimedia exhibition starts to show visitors the most recent achievements of research on the site.

Leading architect: Péter Koch – Nara Stúdió Kft.
Fellow architects: Tamás Bartkó, Róbert Boldoczki, Eszter Németh
HVAC: M Bautrend Kft.
Electrical engineering: Balázs Vágó – Freozin Kft.
Structure: Balázs Pallós – BASE-Invest Kft.