House of Music Budapest – Sou Fujimoto
The House of Hungarian Music, in the heart of the City Park of Budapest, is not only a museum but a larger vision encompassing past and future, people and culture, nature, and the sciences of music. It is not about displaying but inviting in, going away from simple contemplation to suggest participation and interactions. The essence of sound and music, hearing, can be brought in much deeper ways. Away from the conventional exhibition spaces, classrooms, or event halls, Sou Fujimoto chose to let architecture cradle the visitors along their way. With no clear path, pedestrians meander around the museum, as they would do around the park, invading the space like a continuous flow whose intensity varies along with the days, just as sound permeates space, bouncing around surfaces, running along the walls.
The House of Hungarian Music is also the vision of a 21st-century museum, highly integrated into the environment by all means. Ecologically friendly as well as aesthetically, fitting carefully to the landscape and the soul of the park, this vision of the 21st century put the emphasis on the act of meeting and sharing, regardless of the reasons that brought people to this place: to study, listen, perform, play or work, everyone has a place to teach and to learn. The project, by its architectural qualities, and by letting the environment penetrate its heart, becomes a symbol of today’s open borders, physical or electronic freedom of traveling and communicating all around the world.
