Szablyár Péter: Step by step - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2010)
The stairs of the Palace of Arts
The stairs of the Palace of Arts Several new public and residential buildings have been constructed in Budapest in recent years. Their appearance usually provoked debates in the profession and sometimes extremely critical reactions from the general public. Opinions, often deeply divided, were normally moderated after a while and the buildings themselves gradually blended into their environment. One refreshing exception to this rule is the case of the Palace of Arts (rechristened in common parlance to Miipa, which is short for Művészetek Palotája, the name of the centre in Hungarian) a building officially opened in 2005. The complex envisaged by architects Gábor Zoboki and Nóra Demeter and their associates surpassed all expectations, becoming within a very short time of its opening a favourite with the music and art loving public in Hungary and abroad, and a crown jewel of the slowly emerging Millennium City Centre, its success has been marked by several tokens of domestic and international recognition - it received the F1ABCI Prix d'Excellence in 2006 in the "special" category. The prize was awarded in appreciation of the virtues of the building as an aesthetic object of architectural design integrating the achievements of a variety of arts, as well as for the application of various technologies to enhance the building's theatrical, ■ Sven the itain are in harmony with the deiign 77
