Budaörs Town Hall

Budaörs' former town hall was housed in a no-nonsense office block. The competition guidelines for the new building required inclusion of the existing office in the new design, but the architects found hardly any references in the immediate surroundings with which to link their design. Instead they drew their inspiration from the characteristic rocky hills around the town. The design can then be interpreted as an artificial rock that has come rolling down one of those hills. On the outside the 'rock' is solid, on the inside hollow, with the council chamber and lobby in the core. From the forecourt, citizens enter the building centrally, into the double-height lobby. The lobby can also be accessed from the parking lot. In that case, the visitor descends beside a narrow watercourse flowing across a ridged concrete surface. The architects made use of the sloping site here to make ten tiered wooden benches, satisfying the municipality's requirement of public spaces for cultural events.