Boros Géza: Statue Park - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)

Witness Square

■ The Lait Breath of Communism byTDDSZArt, ig8g

pedestal of the former Stalin statue, including the boots which survived the toppling of the monster in 1956. Reconstruction is to be based on the original design. The architect himself describes his intentions as follows: "While a serious attempt must be made at evoking the original spectacle, the authentic atmosphere in terms of the brutal 'imperial' monumentality of the construction, it will also have to be emphasised, with the use of alternative materials, the discarding of certain elements (such as the inscription or the wreath-site) and, mainly, the replacement of reliefs with the rhythmic arrangement of wall pilasters, that this is a memento and not the Stalin monument that has been rebuilt here." This metaphorical building-cum-monument-in-torso promises to have a cathartic effect in itself: "the pair of abandoned boots of Stalin on the pedestal is the finest possible statue of tyrannicide" (writer Miklós Haraszti).

The rebuilt pedestal of the Stalin statue served as a ceremonial tribune until the late 1980s; from here, government ministers and party chiefs greeted the masses marching by. (One piece of the series is exhibited in the statue gallery of the House of Terror, a historical museum opened in 2002 at No. 60 Andrássy út.) The tribune and the square are meant to be used for open-air events. However, their primary function will be to stand as the final link in a symbolic chain running from the boot-statue through the ornamental gate inscribed with the poem all the way to the terminal. Witness Square together with the Statue Park will comprise Memento Park, which will evoke, within

56