Faurest, Kristin: Ten spaces - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2010)
Mátyás tér
down neighbourhood square to vital centre of its neighbourhood, otherwise known as the Magdolna Quarter. Mátyás tér is a pleasant, lively, colourful place to visit, with its youthful atmosphere, comfortable furnishings, lush new plantings and attractive architectural surroundings. It’s also interesting to visit because it was the first significant public space rehabilitation in Budapest that was carried out with direct participation from the residents from start to finish. The Magdolna Quarter — which has about 12,000 residents — is defined by Nagyfuvaros utca, Népszínház utca, Fiumei út, Baross utca, Koszorú utca and Mátyás tér. It is one of the more impoverished areas of Budapest. The Magdolna neighbourhood itself is part of the target of a multi-year, complex social urban rehabilitation project begun in 2005 and led by Rév8, a company jointly owned by the municipality of District VIII. and the City of Budapest. The project is one of astonishing ambition and scale unprecedented in the region - its goal is nothing short of taking one of the most historically-neglected neighbourhoods in the city and upgrading it, through a combination of social initiatives (including employment training), the improvement of public green space, the construction of new housing (both affordable and upscale) and the rehabilitation of historic buildings (with original residents still retaining their homes afterwards). All this is worth mentioning in the context of understanding Mátyás tér itself. The social urban rehabilitation program’s goal, according to Rév8, is to create a neighbourhood capable of taking in and providing a safe home for social groups and generations of a variety of cultural and social backgrounds. Actively involving the neighbourhood residents in the square’s rehabilitation and redesign was a key element of this approach. The square got its name in 1830, its original name was Frühlingsfeld, or Spring Field. Nearby Tavaszmező utca still retains that name to this day. It became Matthiasplatz in 1870, and has also been called Mátyás király tér. Its current name dates from 1874. It is considered to be the oldest built-up square in the district - by the early 19th century it was already surrounded by houses on three sides. In 1838 the icy, devastating flood that crippled most of the city also overcame Józsefváros, with Mátyás tér and the surrounding area under as much as three meters of floodwater. The flood would forever 38
