At the design tender announced for the development of Városháza (Town Hall) Forum and its close environment, Dutch architect with a worldwide reputation and active in Budapest since 1990 Erick van Egeraat and his team have been announced as winner. The architects were requested to design a modern city centre that unites cultural, community and municipality functions, and that is in harmony with its environment, Deputy Mayor Imre Ikvai-Szabó said in his announcement on Friday. He added that the jury had HUF 42 milllion to be given as fee to the winners, and that the first is to receive 15 million, the second one 12 million, while 4 million “priority purchase” has been decided upon for each of three other projects, and 1,5 million went to two other ones.

Budapest Mayor Gábor Demszky emphasized that the main aspect of selection was that the project should be a driving force to create more friendly, more easy-to-use and many-sided public spaces. The Town Hall Forum development projects is related to the Heart of Budapest Programme to renew the city centre, which is to involve radically reducing the number of cars in the area, green and pedestrian areas are to expanded.

Demszky stressed that the Forum, as a priority task, is to provide space for cultural and community purposes, and to renew office functions at the same time. A conference centre with the capacity of 500 is to be built, which could as well serve as council hall. He added that a multifunctional concert/theatre hall would add to the whole. He highlighted the importance of the environmentally aware approach as main aspect of selection, in construction and operation as well. The new complex will be utilized on a commercial basis only to a scale enough to help the project come to life.

National chief architect Sándor Fegyverneky –a jury co-head , similarly to Ikvai-Szabó – said the works sent in to be expressing the highly positive emotions the designers have for the city. He added that all of the applications the jury addressed were high-quality projects.

Erick van Egeraat said he, being active in Budapest since 1990, always saw the lost chances in the field of tenders. He expressed that the winning team of 45 people had spent three months working on the project. Imre Ikvai-Szabó said that the PPP – Public-Private Partnership – deal is to keep the plots as city property, and the municipality would utilize some of these in order to finance the development project. The design contract is to be signed in spring 2009, and the investor will be named after the concession public procurement tender at around year-end. Construction works will begin in 2011, expectedly.