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HUNGARIAN SYMPHONY
A massive investment in culture is putting Budapest on the map for music, art and film production
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House of Music, Budapest; built as part of the Liget Budapest project
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Exterior view of Budapest’s House of Music at night WORDS ANDREW EAMES
Robert Henke looks more like an academic than a musician. As he turned to accept the applause of the assembled audience he seemed faintly bemused to nd himself on stage. His performance – the electronic utterances of a battalion of 1980s computers, orchestrated by Henke from a keyboard while sitting in his o ce chair – was a long way from being a traditional concert. But then, the glass-walled auditorium e project is clearly intended to make the nation in the brand-new Japanese-designed House of Music in feel proud of its cultural credentials. e hope, too, is Budapest is certainly a long way from being a conventional that it will attract more upmarket travellers, especially concert venue. as the glorious neo-Renaissance State Opera House
For a start, its roof is organically shaped and looks down the road has just reopened a er a multi-millionlike a giant mushroom with holes poked in it to let the euro restoration. Moreover, this is the city where tickets light in and trees grow through. Under that roof, besides to opera, ballet and classical music concerts are a small the auditorium with its planned 500-plus live musical percentage of what you would pay in Western Europe. performances a year, it also has a sound dome where you can lie back on beanbags ATTRACTIONS GALORE and bathe in a compelling combination of As a weekend break destination, sound and images. Below ground in the Budapest has long punched above its mushroom’s roots, there’s a comprehensive weight in terms of popularity, but most exhibition that charts the development of of its visitors come for inexpensive music all the way from the drumming of indulgences, including its pound-a-pint early man to digital compositions in the beers and famous hot water spas, such mode of Henke, with all sorts of magically as at Gellert or Szechenyi, where you innovative interactions along the way. can get a massage for under £20. ey
If that is not enough to keep all members of the family come, too, for its good-value palatial happy, there are musical stepping stones outside, for hotels, its fancy co ee houses, and its making music and blowing o steam. ‘ruin bars’ such as Szimpla Kert, pubs that
All in all it’s a very impressive structure, have recolonised tumbledown buildings with a pretty he y price tag (€80 million). in an innovative way. ey also come for But it is just one element in a whopping sightseeing river cruises on the Danube and to €1 billion investment that the Hungarian tour the House of Terror, the former headquarters government is making in its Liget project, all of the secret police during the Communist period, with constructed within the con nes of Budapest’s city park. its torture cells in the basement. It includes a giant new Ethnographic Museum, currently At some point in their stay most visitors cross the nearly nished and looking like a huge skateboard ramp. Danube river to visit Buda, the government district up on Eventually there will also be the New National Gallery to a hill that rises on the west bank of the river (although the house the combined modern collections of the Museum famous chain bridge crossing is closed for maintenance of Fine Arts and the Hungarian National Gallery. right now). Most end up at Buda’s Fisherman’s Bastion
Liget is, according to House of Music head of publicity viewpoint, very popular for sel es, and then return to Pest, Medea Kui, the largest-ever cultural investment project in the city’s commercial heart on the east bank, home to the Europe. And this in a country that spends more on culture famous Central Market and most of the shops and hotels. (3 per cent of GDP) per head of population than any To get around, many visitors ride the old trams, the other European nation. ancient underground (second oldest in the world a er
It looks like a giant mushroom with holes poked in it to let the light in and trees grow through
London), the child-run Children’s Railway and, when the weather is good, they repair to Margaret Island in the middle of the river, with its spa, pools and jogging track.
ORBAN’S HUNGARY
Today, despite the proximity of the conflict in Ukraine, plenty of these typical weekend visitors are still arriving in Budapest. Some, of course, are peering around themselves nervously, looking for signs of a refugee crisis, or even of rebellious reactions to controversial prime minister Viktor Orban’s recent re-election.
In fact neither are in evidence. There are Ukrainians in Budapest, for sure, but those who are in the city centre generally have money to spend, so are welcome guests. And while Orban himself may not be popular with Europe, his margin of victory (53 per cent of votes compared to the opposition’s 35 per cent) is indicative of his domestic popularity. The conflict in Ukraine helped him achieve that victory, with Hungarians banking on his ability to walk his well-practised tightrope between the EU and Putin’s Russia, thereby ensuring that their nation is very unlikely to be drawn into conflict by either side.
If locals find the stability of Orban’s tenure reassuring, so too do outside investors who have business interests in Budapest. Many of them are coming not to experience homegrown culture, but to make their own versions, because the city has long been a rendezvous for Hollywood producers, attracted by Hungarian government tax incentives that refund up to 30 per cent of their production costs.
HOLLYWOOD CALLS
It’s not just the official subsidy that pulls in the makers of blockbusters such as Blade Runner 2049 and Terminator: Dark Fate, nor the city’s photogenic locations and lavish hotels that are more than good enough to accommodate even the pickiest of stars. The key ingredients in Budapest’s popularity with Hollywood are the sets of very professional studios both in and around the city; places such as the government-run NFI Studios at Fot, whose backlots and sound stages include a world-class medieval town, a Western village and an American suburb, all on the outskirts of the capital, a 30-minute drive from Budapest Ferenc Liszt airport.
Aware of the importance of innovation in keeping their valuable customers happy, construction work has recently begun on four new lots at the NFI, increasing its capacity to 12,200 sqm by the end of 2023.
It’s a strategy that is working well. Pre-pandemic, overseas film production was making an annual contribution approaching €500 million to the nation’s coffers, a figure that is likely to be reached in 2022 because all the production facilities are already booked up by
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Szimpla Kert, a typical ‘ruin bar’ in Budapest; Margeret Island on the Danube offers a spa, pools and jogging track; New York Café at the Anantara New York Palace Hotel in Pest
big companies, including Marvel, Netflix, Lionsgate and Disney until the year’s end.
Of course, film producers are not the only outside investors to notice that there is a willing labour force available in Hungary, comparatively cheaply, particularly with the current weakness of the forint (the local currency). Vehicle manufacturing currently represents about 20 per cent of Hungarian exports, and employs 170,000 people, both of which numbers are likely to increase substantially when BMW opens its new plant at Debrecen in 2025. The plan is for the mega-site to be the hub of BMW’s electric car production and when it gets up to full capacity, its workforce of 1,000 will be expected to produce 150,000 vehicles a year.
WIZZ AIR SUCCESS
Many of the executives for both these industries – film and automotive – will be travelling back and forth to Hungary courtesy of its own homemade transport success story, Wizz Air. Following the collapse of state airline Malev back in 2012, the Budapest-based low-cost airline’s business has grown steadily over the past few years, prospering on the back of labour force movements between east and west, and recently venturing into the medium-haul market by adding destinations in the Middle East.
Pre-pandemic, the airline announced a plan to hire 4,600 new pilots by 2030 and ordered 102 new aircraft to add to the current fleet of 140, with the intention of taking the total to 500 by the end of the decade. Of course, these projections will have to be redrawn thanks to the current geopolitical situation, but Hungary is far from being alone in that predicament. For the moment, it is business as usual in the Hungarian capital.
Hotel news
■ Thailand-based luxury hotel group Anantara has just taken over the fabulous New York Palace hotel in downtown Pest, with its gloriously Belle Epoque café, all pastel frescos and gilded balustrades. That makes it popular with film industry executives, says Foldes Gabor, director of PR and marketing. Business travellers make up 20 per cent of the property’s guest list, a bit lower than pre-pandemic, but recovering.
■ It’s a similar story at the Four Seasons Gresham Palace, on the riverside, its façade a masterpiece of Art Nouveau and its foyer a magnificent glass cupola with wrought-iron peacocks. The presidential suites overlook the river and its spa occupies the whole of the top floor.
■ Also on the riverbank, but over on the Buda side, the glamorous Hotel Gellert sits next to the spa of the same name. The Budapest landmark is currently closed following its sale by the Danubius group to developer Indotek, which says it has plans to reopen the spa later this year, once it has been restored to its former glory. ■ Marriott’s Luxury Collection has opened a lavish new property, Matild Palace, built more than 120 years ago by Princess Clotild of SaxeCoburg and Gotha. The building is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, so architects have been meticulous in the 111 rooms and 19 suites, with 4m high ceilings. Royalty must have been tall.
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Four Seasons Gresham Palace; Gellert Spa; A terrace view from Matild Palace
