Kultpiknik a Malomtónál - Beta Competition
Graduation projects

Mill Lake Picnic

Project description

A small-looking found place on the outskirts of downtown Budapest. Behind a tall steel-and-glass fence, complex layers pile up. The artificially dammed lake, left over from the gunpowder mills of Turkish times, is fed by a warm water spring, attracting a rich flora and fauna, and the lush greenery of the Rose Hill runs down into it. From the city centre, the street is enclosed by the torso of the former steam bath. Most of the Moorish ornamentation has been destroyed, but the atmosphere of the domed central square is captivating even in its bareness. Across the lake is a disused restaurant. Behind the baths, an iron door closes off the cave system hidden in the mountain. The varied functions were accompanied by an active social life. In addition to its hygienic role, the baths became one of the favourite male meeting place of the time, appealing to a much more diverse social stratum than originally intended. The bistro, which has been operating since the 1960s in the building opposite, is a regular haunt of Kassák, among others, but we also arrive here for a party in the film The Two Lives of Mrs. Mici. After privatisation, the site will remain accessible only to divers and ducks. The surrounding urban fabric of building and asphalt is broken up only by the structured flower beds of open public parks, important but uninviting green patches. Here, the natural topography of the wooded square wall and the neighbouring houses form an intimate island. The aim is to give this back to the inhabitants and to create a new community function, a new public space. The scheme is a loose weave of elements essential to an ideal functioning, striving for the minimum. The scale and the atmosphere are also unique, inviting cultural-social events of a personal nature. The events are created by making use of existing assets. The bath will be extended with a puritan exhibition space and entrance that evokes the original, while the bistro will be shrunk back to a minimum. Landscape elements lead the two into the garden and link them together. Divers will have an extension between the cave entrance and the bath. The existing house will be preserved in its present form, with restoration of the ruined ornamentation being replaced by conservation. No additional layers are added. The new houses will follow suit. The detailing, the finishes are derived from the characteristics of the materials. The connections are made in the most puritanical way. The exterior and interior follow the same raw honesty.

Author's presentation text

Regina Tabori is an architect graduated in 2021 at Budapest University of Technology and Economics. She is recently based in Lisbon.