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Ballai Vince – Windisch Judit

The new Ethnographic Museum will be one of the emblematic buildings of Budapest, according to Minister László Baán. Construction is slower than planned and will be ready soon. We also analyzed the rest of the Liget project, which was heavily attacked.

It will not dominate Városliget, the highest point of the new Ethnographic Museum is below the canopy level – László Baán, the ministerial commissioner of the Liget Budapest project, calmed down before visiting the semi-finished building. This can also be verified on site, as the planned building for the former parking lot at 56 Square has now reached its highest point. It will be ready for construction in the fall, it may open to visitors in 2022.

70 percent of the museum is designed underground, so the exhibition spaces will not take up park space, but the specially designed view from the top will be excellent, Baán said.

It is not intrusive, it does not dominate the space and there will be three times more exhibition space than before. It will be one of the emblematic buildings of Budapest along with the House of Music.

This is now the most expensive urban park investment among Biodóm’s ongoing construction due to rising costs, which will cost $ 32 billion, according to current data. Its two contractors are Záev, owned by one of Lőrinc Mészáros’s companies, and Magyar Építő, also owned by Attila Paár, which is also owned by NER. There were 26 billion in the original order, but the costs increased by 6 billion due to “unforeseen circumstances.” The delivery is also in a significant delay, in 2018 Baan was still talking about a completion in 2020.

We look at how elements of the project, which sparked great protests and resistance and was half-stopped after the municipal elections, are maintained and how much they have become more expensive than originally planned.

Most slip and get more expensive

So far, two buildings have been completed – it opened last fall Millennium Házával, which means the renovated and renamed Olof Palme House. The cost also increased here, but by an order of magnitude less than in others: the amount stood at 3.6 billion instead of 3. The contractor was Épkar Zrt.

A Romanian Hall of the Museum of Fine Arts It was completed at the end of 2018 and delivered in May of last year. Restoration and storage center of the National Museum, which cost $ 17.1 billion instead of $ 12 due to replacement work.

A Underground garage on the Dozsa György road is preparing for the next one, which according to Liget Zrt. it is in a state before delivery. There you can park 800 cars on 3 levels, and residents of the area will receive a discount. This project also failed for a year and became more expensive by 1.6 billion HUF. In the end, Attila Paár’s other aforementioned company, West Hungária Bau Kft., Could end up for HUF 7.6 billion.

Mentioned by László Baán Hungarian House of Music It was promised for September 2019, compared to what the “floating pancake” was made in July this year, that is, the building was ready for construction. Under current plans, the building, which will open in 2021, is expected to cost 23.04 billion instead of 17.5 billion, which will also be built by Attila Paár.

Városliget Zrt. He wrote to hvg.hu that the implementation is progressing well, now the surface of the glass wall consisting of the largest continuous glass panels in Europe is being built, it is expected to open in early 2022.

The biggest fell (?)

In the municipal election campaign, Gergely Karácsony campaigned to stop the Liget project, and after his election, the Metropolitan Assembly voted in November, but as it is a significant public investment, the opportunities for the Capital are actually limited.

Despite the promise, the construction projects that were already underway did not stop, but the three most important investments: the New National Gallery, the Hungarian House of Innovation and the Városliget Theater, where not a single job was done, they did not stop.

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Gergely Gulyás, the prime minister, have promised not to start investing without the consent of the city administration. At our current request, Városliget Zrt. He wrote that the plans for the three buildings have been completed (the New National Gallery would cost more than 70 billion), they have a valid and enforceable building permit,

Városliget Zrt. The construction of the cultural institutions in question will begin, depending on the government’s decision.

In a substantive discussion in February, László Baán confirmed that the government would not start investing in Budapest without the consent of the capital, “but that does not mean that it does not see the possibility of a commitment in the future that allows the full implementation of the Park. “. That is why they are not looking for another location for the New National Gallery.

Shortly after the statement, during the emergency, Parliament lifted the tampering ban on Városliget with a salad law introduced by Zsolt Semjén, which was not difficult to interpret as that the government was building everything planned for Christmas. The mayor, for his part, was not concerned about this, he told hvg360 in an interview, this does not mean that the government can complete the Liget project, only a ban on changes cannot be ordered by the General Assembly, but it is not necessary. He said the new building code will be adopted soon, after which it will not be possible to build a new building. We approached the capital to see when they could decide on this, however, we did not receive an official response, but informally our capital sources confirmed that they could vote on the issue in the fall.

Originally, the Transport Museum would have been in the City Park on the site of the Petőfi Hall, but it was installed before Christmas arrived. It will eventually be built in Kőbánya.

The Biodom is the biggest blama

The increasing investments of the Liget project are dwarfed compared to Biodom at the Budapest Zoo and Botanical Garden. There, it was not the contractor (more precisely, the unforeseen cost) that the goose was, but the former CEO, Miklós Persányi, dreamed of getting bigger and bigger, he said late last year. ), another 20 billion.

The debate raged at this point, and the government and the capital said they would not pay, so it comes down to whether Biodom will ever be populated with animals, as Miklós Persányi dreamed of.

The new city administration has also reviewed the investment with an external company, the results of which are still awaited. Miklós Persányi resigned shortly after. Meanwhile, a NAV investigation is underway, and 2019 documents are seized by tax authorities on suspicion of non-compliance with accounting rules. We contacted NAV to find out how the investigation is, but they cannot discuss an ongoing case.



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