Since its handover, Mayor Gergely Karácsony made his first statement about the Museum of Ethnography, which he saw as a failure.
He said that he did not participate in the ceremonial inauguration of the building because he does not support the construction of the City Park and did not want to send the message that his opinion has changed with his presence. According to him, the new building is also a failure from the point of view of Budapest as a whole, because "the government wants to implement an extremely expensive investment in the City Park, while I think that to everyone's satisfaction, we could enjoy new cultural institutions in places that enjoy consensus. Városliget is not like that".
However, the building, which the mayor saw as a failure, was chosen not only as the best public building in Europe, but also in the world. Known: even before the building was handed over, one of the most prestigious international real estate competitions in the world, the International Property Awards awarded the museum building. It was the first time in the organization's quarter-century history that a Hungarian building finished as the best in the world. Among the winning projects at the national level, the building of the Museum of Ethnography proved to be the best public building in Europe, and then, as the best on the continent, it earned the "World's Best" award among the category winners of the ten regions of the world. The recognition was presented to the winners of the categories in London.
At the opening ceremony of the museum, Viktor Orbán explained: the Hungarian government will fully implement the program planned for the City Park, which is Europe's largest cultural investment. He emphasized that the largest cultural investment in the Western world is currently taking place in the Városliget. He stated: "the Hungarian government is using our country's resources to clean up Budapest's most beautiful park. While everyone claimed that this could not be done, we are going step by step along this path. On April 3rd, we received the authorization to implement Europe's largest cultural program in its entirety. " - He told.
Zsolt Wintermantel , the leader of the Fidesz-KDNP faction in the capital, the construction of the Museum of Ethnography, but also the development of the City Park in a broader sense, includes the development of Budapest despite the fact that "not everyone is happy about it". In his interview with Index, he explained : " if there is no development, that's the problem, if there is development, that's the problem. I see that the mayor can't be happy about anything. I can't believe that the mayor of a city that receives such a significant development in a place with such an attractiveness, even by international standards, is not happy and supports it, but chains himself to the tree. You have to go to the site, see what is being built there and compare it with the non-functioning conditions of five years ago ".
He added: "it is not certain that the mayor's opinion should be taken seriously. My experience is that, according to him, the people of Budapest want nothing, only bee pastures, insect hotels, i.e. weeds, empty bicycle lanes, closed roads, traffic jams, chaos, garbage, homeless people doing their business in public areas. According to him, the people of Budapest want a run-down capital. I value the people of Budapest much more than this, and I am glad that the government also thinks they deserve more".
Author: Ákos Jezsó / hirado.hu
Cover photo: Mayor Gergely Karácsony at City Hall on May 25, 2022. DK and Momentum quarreled, and the meeting of the Capital Assembly convened for this day was canceled due to a lack of quorum. MTI/Noémi Bruzák
