The House of Hungarian Music, to be built as part of the Liget Budapest Project, will on one meet an existing need, while on the other establish a genuine living community space that will serve as one of the defining meeting places for Hungarian musical life with its exhibition, concert and education halls, open-air stage, music teaching programmes for children, activities, concerts, displays and plethora of opportunities for enjoyable learning, as well as its unique sound dome. The new institution will be an ambassador and forum for the wonder of music with its diverse and rich offering in keeping with the unique and outstanding characteristics of our nation’s historical legacy and present.
HUNGARY’S RICH MUSICAL HERITAGE
Construction work on the House of Hungarian Music, part of the Liget Budapest Project, is on schedule. The underground work on the building has been completed and the house itself is now being built, so it will be in a structurally complete state within one year. Both the construction work and the building site have scored an “exemplary” rating in terms of the BREEAM environmental awareness assessment, the most important international building classification system.
The House of Hungarian Music is being constructed next to the Városliget lake near the Vajdahunyad Castle and the building overlooking the ice rink on the site of the disused and now demolished buildings of the Hungexpo offices, which were a blight on the park for decades. The almost entirely translucent and environmentally friendly building designed by Japanese star architect Sou Fujimoto aims to establish a harmonious transition between the natural and man-made world. According to Fujimoto, it is a major dream for any architect to design a modern museum and the House of Hungarian Music embodies everything that makes today’s museum architecture exciting: A conventional exhibition space is no longer sufficiently attractive, so it needs to be combined with other functions, such as performance halls and teaching spaces.
In the place where the Hungexpo Offices once stood
The House of Hungarian Music will provide an extremely wide range of games providing genuine experiences for children, spanning from instrument laboratories and instrument-making workshops to musical composition, conducting, musical drawing, singing and making music together and a mini dance house. Temporary exhibitions will also be found at the underground level along with a unique sound dome, which will be a special hemispherical cupola where diverse sound spaces will be created using special audio and projection technology. The ground floor will be home to lecture halls and an open-air stage.
