Despite its celebrated campus design, Budapest's Central European University faces harsh political resistance

2018-10-23T14:12:00-04:00

Over the last two years, the Central European University (CEU) has been subjected to verbal and thinly-veiled legislative attacks by Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orbán. [...] Should the university choose to relocate, it would be forced to abandon not only the country it has operated in since opening in 1991, but also its recently opened premises.

CNN Style explains why the celebrated Phase 1 design of the Central European University's deliberately modernist Budapest campus may potentially not be able to save the school's existence in the city.

Photo © Tamás Bujnovszky

Designed by Irish firm O'Donnell + Toumey, the part-new part-refurbished university building, with its nod to transparency and context, is currently one of four shortlistees for the 2018 RIBA International Prize, however tensions have been steadily growing between the administration of populist Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán and the institute's founder, Hungarian American billionaire George Soros, a liberal.

While the school moved to plan a satellite campus in Vienna, the future progress of the Budapest campus development remains in limbo — a scenario of uncertainty for O'Donnell + Toumey. "I don't think you can hold architecture to account in matters of social change," John Tuomey told CNN, "architecture d...

Archinect - News

Despite its celebrated campus design, Budapest's Central European University faces harsh political resistance