House of Music, Hungary

Ask any Budapest resident what comes to mind when they think of Városliget, and they will surely mention the House of Music, a cultural oasis surrounded by enormous trees, a deliberately designed entertainment park with a museum district at its edge. It’s home to the capital’s most famous circus, an ice-skating rink and one of its thermal baths. The House of Music is nestled among all these offerings, next to the only musical playground in Central Europe.

Hungary’s House of Music is the world’s first complex musical initiation centre, according to music historian and facility director András Batta. “It is like a planetarium, but instead of stars we study sounds,” he says.

The building was designed by Japanese star architect Sou Fujimoto, who conceived its design to reflect nature. The early working title of the project was in fact “Forest of Music”. The shape of the perforated roof evokes images of both pebbles being thrown into a puddle and spreading sound waves, with seven trees reaching skyward through holes in the roof. 

In addition to other numerous international awards, the House of Music has also been named “Europe’s Leading New Tourist Attraction 2022” by the World Travel Awards. 

Source: House of Music

The complex has three levels and its triple structure appears in different forms. The upper floor, also called the canopy level, functions as the building’s mind. It is home to the digital archives, a video and recording studio which can be rented, and a multimedia library. The latter features a special, glass-walled room that is sound-proofed up to 80 decibels, and, following registration, offers the possibility to borrow audio files to listen to in the comfort of one’s home. The middle floor, also called the park level, consists of an auditorium and a concert hall; this is the body of the building. For the perfect musical experience, both rooms have acoustic screens which reflect sound and can be elevated as needed. The same, perforated fabric serves as the upholstery for the seats and the curtains are also made of it.

The façade of the building, unique in Europe, is a "glass curtain" made up of 94 glass panels, each almost 12 meters high. This gives visitors the illusion that they are still wandering in the park. The underground floor, the foot of the building, houses a sound dome: including light shows and graphics, a wide repertoire of surround sounds can be created here, as well as total silence: the so-called anechoic chamber effect. A highly interactive permanent exhibition, “Sound Dimensions – Musical Journeys in Space and Time”, is also on this level. Visitors can wander wearing headsets with built-in GPS that maps their location and provides information for where they are. There are other special features, such as an installation modelled on Beethoven's brain (which can be entered), but also a shaman drum, a musical metro map, printers for sheet music and a Gregorian-chant reader.

János Másik and Géza Bereményi (photo: Balázs Mohai)

“We’d love to hear about someone, who is otherwise not interested in music, visiting the exhibition on a Sunday and asking his colleagues the next day: ‘Did you know that Mozart spent almost a third of his life on a stagecoach?’” Batta imagines optimistically. 

See also:

Budapest's Cultural Riches Include Art of Photography

Unrivalled Exhibitions at the Museum of Fine Arts and Hungarian National Gallery
Budapest at the Gates of Heaven – as Interpreted by Pál Frenák
Trafó: A Theatre in No-man’s Land

Photo: Balázs Mohai