House of Hungarian Music
Why is it significant?
In front of you, among the trees of City Park, floats a roof. That is really the first impression: a huge, wavy white canopy resting on walls of glass so thin they almost vanish, and trees growing up right through holes in the roof, as if the building had simply been lowered over the forest.
Key Facts
| Place | House of Hungarian Music |
|---|---|
| Address | Olof Palme sétány 3, 1146 Budapest, Hungary |
| Geo Coordinates | 47.51320, 19.08370 |
| Part of Walk | Budapest's Musical Boulevard: Andrássy Avenue from the Opera to Heroes' Square |
| Generated | Generated |
In front of you, among the trees of City Park, floats a roof. That is really the first impression: a huge, wavy white canopy resting on walls of glass so thin they almost vanish, and trees growing up right through holes in the roof, as if the building had simply been lowered over the forest.
This is the House of Hungarian Music, designed by the Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto and opened in January 2022. Fujimoto said he wanted a building that felt like the forest itself, and the underside of the roof is decorated with a pattern of golden leaves. It is part of a vast and much-debated project to fill City Park with new museums, and this building ended up being the one that even many sceptics came to love.
Inside, the story of music is told through sound rather than through glass cases. In the basement there is a sound dome, a hemispherical room where music and images surround you completely. Upstairs, the permanent exhibition walks you from the earliest instruments to Liszt, Bartók and Kodály, the three men whose homes and schools you have just passed, and on to the popular music of the twentieth century.
And it is meant to be heard as much as seen. Concerts are held in its hall, and in good weather music spills out into the park around it. Musicians and acousticians worked on the rooms so that a single voice and a full ensemble could both sound right.
Look around you once more. This park, the Városliget, has been a public pleasure ground since the early nineteenth century, often called one of the first public parks in Europe, made for ordinary city people rather than for kings. It hosted the great exhibition of 1896, and now music has moved into it for good. Walk north-west along the path to the lake, cross the little bridge, and you will find yourself in front of a castle that looks five hundred years older than it is.