Everything to its right place!

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Petition in defence of Városliget (City Park), Buda Castle and Budapest, the capital city.  

We, the undersigned, have already raised our voices on numerous occasions against the building of the Városliget museum-quarter, the elimination of cultural functions in Buda Castle and the proposed creation of a government administrative quarter there. These massive projects, costing many hundreds of billion forints, would redraw the cultural map of Budapest in an illogical and unjustifiable manner. Our observations fell on deaf ears by the decision makers, therefore we turn to the general public. We ask all those who care for the future of the capital city to join our petition set out below:  

  1. Városliget (City Park) should remain a park and shouldn’t become a ‘building plot’. One of the most valuable public recreation spaces should not be further disfigured by any unnecessary, unsuitable and incompatible building.  
  2. Government departments with responsibility for cultural affairs should make it a priority to ensure that the existing public collections are kept in conditions appropriate to their importance. There are numerous unused historic buildings in Budapest looking for a useful function, these should be given priority in consideration for locating the new museums.  
  3. Buda Castle should remain a cultural centre: the Hungarian National Gallery and academic institutions should not be expelled. The long existing gaping holes between the buildings should be filled with new homes for cultural institutions.  
  4. The oversized Hauszmann-palace, with no royal residents ever, has limited value as a historic building, reconstruction of its old facade of hundred years ago does not justify the enormous costs.  
  5. Government departments should not be moved into Buda Castle! In a democracy the best location for the Prime Ministers’ office and other ministries is near the Parliament Building, the house of the nation – and they should remain there!  

We object to the unjustifiable waste of resources that are contrary to public interest and to the adopted proceedings that contravene the democratic rule of law!