N. Kósa Judit - Szablyár Péter: Underground Pest - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)

A whale skeleton under the military academy

ranean spaces, but in the summer of 2001 virtually the whole area underneath the complex was investigated. A seventeen-metre deep pit was dug underneath the yard and another one beneath the area between the manége and the main building. Twenty-five thousand cubic metres of concrete and two thousand tons of steel were used for the construction of three new levels to add a floor space of more than ten thousand square metres to the existing rooms of the museum.

According to plans, visitors will enter the museum by way of the central area topped with a glass dome and then head, from the subterranean lobby area, for the exhibits in the manége or those in the section beneath the main building. The underground passage connecting the buildings is not an entirely new idea, since during construction a corridor was discovered, which is likely to have been used by the cadets.

Only part of the built-in areas of the huge pits will be open to the public. Besides a ticket office, a souvenir shop, lavatories and an auditorium, an enormous whale skeleton and an impressive aquarium will also be located in the lobby area. Opposite the entrance, a flight of stairs will connect the lobby to the Orczy Gardens, while access to the permanent exhibition beneath the courtyard will be located to the right. The passageway underneath the main wall of the academy is a masterstroke indeed: the replacement of the one metre thick foundation walls was such a success that the building sank no more

■ The rotunda between the manége and the main building of the Ludoviceum

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