Budapest’s Green Mayor Halts Construction on the City’s $277 Million National Gallery Due to Environmental Concerns

The recently elected mayor of
Budapest has put a halt to the construction of Hungary’s new
National Gallery, claiming the project will have an “enormous
impact on its environment.” At a moment when the art world—not to
mention the world at large—is coming to grips with the climate
crisis and its own role in perpetuating it, the announcement marks
what is likely the first time that climate concerns have scuppered
a major cultural project. 

Gergely Karácsony, a Green Party
leader who was elected mayor of the capital city in October, has
been vocal in his opposition to the $277 million (€250 million)
museum, which was due to be built on “one of Budapest’s few and
very precious green areas.” The National Gallery “is such a
monumental building that it would have an enormous impact on its
environment,” he said, according to The Art
Newspaper.

On November 5, the General
Assembly of Budapest backed Karácsony, voting to suspend
construction on the state-funded gallery, which was due to begin
early next year. Work on the House of Hungarian Innovation, a new
$110 million (€100 million) museum of science, has also been
paused. 

Developed under the previous
mayoral regime of István Tarlós, the National Gallery has been
billed as one of the centerpieces of the rapidly-developing Liget
cultural district in Budapest’s City Park. Other institutions
planned for the area, which is slated to be fully complete by
2023, including the
Museum of Ethnography, the House of Hungarian Music, and an
expanded city zoo. The National Museum Restoration and Storage
Centre, a $77 million (€70 million) storage and research facility
that houses some 300,000 cultural objects, opened to the public in
May of this year. 

Leading the Liget project since
its inception is László Baán, the director of Budapest’s Museum of
Fine Arts. After initially proposing, in 2008, that his institution
merge with the National Gallery via an underground tunnel—a plan
that was turned down by the state—Baán presented a new, more
comprehensive idea in 2011. It entailed the renovation of the
Museum of Fine Arts and the construction of a new national gallery
to replace the existing institution in Buda Castle.

Baán and other Liget proponents
have claimed that the new developments will displace parking lots
and old buildings, and that they’ll actually increase the green
space in the park by five percent.

After meeting with Karácsony
last month, right-wing Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán agreed
to listen to the mayor’s plan, even if it meant contradicting the
foundation laid out by Tarlós, whose nine-year mayorship Orbán
called a “golden era in the history of
Budapest.” 

“I had to withdraw a lot of
things,” Orbán said in a public radio address following his meeting
with Karácsony. “It wasn’t pleasant for us to give up
dreams.” 

For now, the future of broader
cultural development plan remains uncertain. “The Hungarian
government continues to remain committed to Budapest projects to be
implemented from state funds, provided that there is a consensus
between the government and the metropolitan municipality regarding
their realization,” a representative from the Hungarian government
told Artnet News in a statement.

“The government is open to
conducting a normal dialogue with the capital in the spirit of fair
partnership,” the representative continued, noting a willingness to
engage in talks “once the capital decides what it
wants.”

The post Budapest’s Green Mayor Halts Construction on the
City’s $277 Million National Gallery Due to Environmental
Concerns appeared first on artnet News.