The Projected Development in Bécsi Street, District V, Budapest

Text: György Szegő
Photos: Tamás Bujnovszky

Even though it has not ended yet, the year 2010 has already seen its worst architectural-urbanistic scandal – the so-called Zeppelin case of the Inner City of Budapest – understandably referred to it as such. There is no doubt that investors acted well-meaningly when contacting Sir Norman Foster, one of the greatest stars of the international scene of architecture with the aim to attain the „goodwill” of offices respecting authority as well. The Zeppelin would be by all means a radical transformation of urban structure, not only because of its forms, but also because of the scale fetish of project thinking misusing the lack of regional protection. The other set of issues yet hardly on the agenda is the identity of city-dwellers: what is our relationship to this location and to our dwelling place like? The Zeppelin case should be considered not only as that of „dead architecture”, but also from the viewpoint of the recipient. Budapest does not only mean our houses and spaces – it is also embraces us.