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

light of these recommendations, the general assembly proceeded, in its session of 5 December 1991, to pass a decision regarding the dismantling or, in a few cases, the preservation of the statues in question. The establishment by the Budapest Municipality of a statue park for the assembly and exhibition of the dismantled monuments with some historical significance was also decreed. For the purposes of the Statue Park a flat, raised piece of land in the Tétény area, offered by the local authority of District XXII, was selected from among a number of suggested options.

The Municipality commissioned Budapest Gallery, the institution in charge of Budapest's monuments, with the dismantling and removal of the statues. Tenders were invited for architectural plans from architects Zoltán Boross, György Jánossy, László Rajk Jr., Lajos Jeney, György Tokár and György Vadász. Only the last three responded to the invitation, and of their tenders it was designs made by Ákos Eleőd Jr., representing the studio of Vadász and Co., which won the competition.

This is how the successful architect summed up his philosophy: "1 tried to consider every aspect of the task with the seriousness it deserved. Of course, 1 cannot claim to know what the ultimate Truth is. There is meditation. There is time. I had to realise that if I were to make this park with more direct, more drastic, more up-to-date, methods (as others thought fitting) if, that is, 1 were to turn these propaganda statues into a theme park of counter-propaganda, then I would have done nothing but follow the prescriptions and accept the mentality bequeathed to us by the dictatorship.

"The park is about dictatorship and the moment this can be spoken aloud, written down and expressed in architecture, the park will really be about democracy! Only democracy can give us a chance to think freely about dictatorship - or about democracy or anything else for that matter. This, as I see it, can only be expressed by a metaphorical structure in the park, and 1 firmly believe that the system of symbols that 1 have built with the fundamental pattern of dominant main fagade wall, pathway and terminal wall, and whatever this pattern contains, can carry that idea. Inevitably, the American tourist who has only read about 'dictatorship' will respond very differently from the one who was bound to this region by tragic fate and who brings to the park the drama of a whole life wrecked in the name of whatever these statues stood for. Silence is what can be shared."

As well as preparing the architectural design, Ákos Eleőd developed the conceptual framework of the park. The architectural context created by him assigns a dual role to the monuments, which thus appear as archaeological finds and

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