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Budapest

Allan Siegel

Notes on a Street in Transition

As Jane Jacobs pointed out quite a few years ago, a street can be more than simply a pipeline transmitting people or things from one place to the next: in fact in the most dynamic situations it is an organic entity which can either thrive or wither away. In this context the urban street is not that far removed from from the trading routes or trails borne from the wilderness as humanity’s isolated communities intermingled, fought, traded and evolved into modern metropolises.

 

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László Munteán

The Street as Palimpsest

Over the course of the past decade the area of district VII known as Budapest’s old Jewish quarter has been a scene of fierce battles between developers supported by a largely corrupt district government and those civic organizations that have been assiduous in their attempt to protect the district’s 19th century building stock a large part of which has already fallen victim to the wrecking ball.

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Gabó Bartha

Rethinking the marketplace: a story of resistance and proactivity

In 2007, a cluster of activists formed the group ‘Our Treasure, the Market - Hunyadi Square’ (KAP-HT) in order to preserve from shutting down the market at Hunyadi Square which is the only remaining open-air food market in the central districts of Budapest. Linking the luxurious Andrássy avenue to the Király street area that is undergoing radical transformations, this market has become an indicator of the changing demographics, value systems and consumption patterns of the city.

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Budapest symposium

 

Researching and shaping post-socialist urban space 1.

 

 

 

On the 7th of November 2010, from 2 - 7 pm

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Emőke Kerekes

Vendor's Portraits, Király Street

While surveys generally focus on the residents of a particular area, we often have no information about the people who work there. However, these are the people who effect the character of a neighbourhood the most. Emőke Kerekes, in her series of portraits taken of shopkeepers of Király Street, reveal the great variety of retail types in the neighbourhood and the heterogeneity of their vendors.

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Béla Káli

Cul-de-sacs of Transformation: The fate of central quarters after privatisation

The inner Erzsébetváros (Elizabethtown) in Budapest fell victim to the merchant spirit already upon its formation in the late 19th century. A rather dense urban structure was formed already then – with all lots covered from one end to the other – leaving very little public space. With the exception of Klauzál Square, there are no green areas or parks in the inner, densely populated quarters of Districts VI and VII. Although such spaces were, in fact, included in the urban planning, the city sold them to investors, and they have been built over.

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Péter Rákosi (Technika Schweiz)

Shop windows - an inventory, 2007-2010

Shop windows constitute the most visible layer of the urban signscape. Together with posters, advertisements and grafitti messages, they constantly update the city's visual environment: they discribe to the passer-by the current state of consumable objects. Created to animate the desire of shoppers, they are also talkative inventories of what a store has to comunicate. Crafted with humor or exhibitionism, some shop windows peel off from the store they represent and become self-referentional signs, mere decorations of the street.

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Ádám Albert, Réka Schutzmann and Csilla Zsuzsanna Vizl

On the Trace of the Ring: globalisation and real estate on the “most emblematic (Buda)Pest street”

Budapest, the capital of Hungary, boasts a number of invaluable national monuments. Many of these are residential houses still owned by the local governments. Recent years have witnessed the demolition and elimination of these buildings with no regard for their national monument status. This is especially true of Budapest’s District VII, Erzsébetváros (Elizabethtown, the old Jewish ghetto). This is where the three buildings of our concern, Király Street 25-27-29, are located.

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Edwin Heathcote

Church and King

The point where Church Street spills into the roaring Roman Road of Edgware appears an exemplar of urban dysfunction and a crushing critique of London’s particular brand of anti-urbanism. Yet, this is a cityscape of infinite complexity, one of the most perfect ciphers for the contemporary city in which globalisation informs the street in every conceivable way.

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