The initiative of the faculty was unprecedented in our country, and so it was a significant challenge for our profession. Was it possible to organise such a national scale exhibition and conference in about two month period? Nevertheless this challenge seemed to be rather stimulating.

Landscape architects and planning studios responded quickly and in great numbers to the call for papers. They seemed to realise how great an opportunity it might be to present their work at a large scale exhibition for their colleagues and the general public. The exhibition was opened on the 6th of May 2010 at the Fuga Budapest Centre for Architecture.

Among the 147 projects presented we can find a great variety of scales and topics. The scale reaches from private gardens through urban landscapes to regional studies. The topics vary from research through and land use and regulation planning to land art projects.

The exhibition also includes a separate section where the projects winning national or international awards are presented. During the two day conference there will be 25 presentations of the projects followed by discussions. On the weekends, as a part of the Budapest Urban May Festival (Urbitális Majális), there will be 14 guided tours on the sites of recent landscape projects. After the 27th of May the exhibition will move on into other cities of the country (Pécs, Győr, Debrecen, Békéscsaba, Székesfehérvár …).

Before the opening of the exhibition we made a short series of interviews, asking people on the streets, whether they have heard of the profession called landscape architecture, and also asking them what landscape architects do. Majority of the people had heard about landscape architecture. This is a significant achievement, since ten years ago the majority of the people would not have heard of our profession.

However most of the answers suggested that it is only the design of parks and gardens that landscape architects do. Using the metaphor of the 2001: Space Odyssey, we hope that our message will get through to the public. The message is the following: Landscape architecture is a tool, like the crystalline monolith in Arthur C. Clarke’s novel , which can awaken the intelligence of those who use it. By using this tool one can turn our urban and rural landscapes into more aesthetic, more liveable, and more creative places. The tool can also help users to participate in the process of designing and making urban land uses and forms.

An Exhibition And Conference Of The Most Significant Projects Of The Hungarian Landscape Architect Profession In The Period Between 2000 And 2010

organized by the Landscape Faculty of Hungarian Chamber of Architects
faculty president: Péter Schuchmann
chief patron: Prof. Emeritus Mihály Mőcsényi
exhibition curator: Sándor Bardóczi
exibition design: Balázs Almási PhD
animation works: Gábor Lendvai

Written by Péter Gábor

Photographer: Attila Glázer