Architecture Contest: The Parliament, Budapest

[Dornbi]

One of the iconic buildings of Budapest, the Hungarian Parliament Building stands by the Danube giving visitors a perfect view from the Castle Hill on the other side of the river.

After Budapest was united from three cities in 1873, an international competition was held to establish a new, representative Parliament Building. Imre Steindl emerged as the victor. Construction was started in 1885 and the building was inaugurated on the 1000th anniversary of the country in 1896, and completed in 1904. During the communist regime a red star perched on the top of the dome, but was removed in 1990. The Hungarian Republic was declared from the balcony facing Lajos Kossuth Square on 23d October in 1989.

I chose the Parliament because it has a distinct shape that is easy to recognize. The original building has plenty of small details. To keep it all in LEGO I would have had to build in at a much larger scale. Instead I opted to keep it simple and manageable: I wanted to keep the distinct shape of the building but simplify many of the details so that it can be built at a reasonable scale. Even so it is larger than the typical buildings from the Landmark series: 36 studs wide, 19 studs deep and built from about 660 bricks.

More photos at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/bricksngears/ParliamentOfHungary02

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=500138

Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Parliament_Building

Edited April 4, 2012 by Rufus
Indexed

[Theo]

Quite impressive Dornbi, well done!

I am finishing my Greek parliament for the same competition, and I was also conserned about the size. Mine is even bigger, 30 x 28 studs!!!

I wish you good luck, you deserved it, it is such a nice building and I think it looks good in Lego too.

Edited March 27, 2012 by Theo

[Dornbi]

Thank you, looking forward to the Greek Parliament!

[Ardelon]

Looks neat.

Would look a lot better in tan and dark tan IMO, though I dont know whether the parts are availible in those colors. Maybe at least some (dark) tan highlights?

Edited March 26, 2012 by Ardelon

[caperberry]

I've seen this beautiful building and your representation is a wonderful microscale adaptation. I like the sand green tiles especially.

Suggestion, would curved slopes work on the dome instead of the regular slopes?

[JimBee]

Looks very good, Dornbi. It looks very accurate yet simple enough that it would fit right in with other Architecture sets.

One suggestion I have is that you might consider using more round pieces to form the center dome. Initially I figured thismight work, but it might be too small for this scale.

Best of luck in the contest.

[dosto_tube]

Nice microscale replica.

[viracocha]

Very nice model! I like the way you make roof and backside of the building.

[moctown]

You did a great job with this model, so nice!!

But I agree with Jim's idea, possibly using this.

Maybe for the top of the main tower?!

Good luck for the contest!

[Dornbi]

Thank you for all the responses! I plan to stick to the original design at this stage, it took quite an effort to build and photograph.

caperberry, Jim, moctown: I considered using round pieces. The given piece is a bit too small and the larger ones did not look good in my experiments. I also like blocky designs.

Ardelon: I think gray is closer to the original (in spite of the colors of the photo). The best fit would have been very light bluish gray but unfortunately the selection of parts was too limited. Or if there would have been a color halfway between tan and gray. I also considered using some tan pieces, but it made it look more complex and overwhelmed with colors.

[Ardelon]

Ardelon: I think gray is closer to the original (in spite of the colors of the photo). The best fit would have been very light bluish gray but unfortunately the selection of parts was too limited. Or if there would have been a color halfway between tan and gray. I also considered using some tan pieces, but it made it look more complex and overwhelmed with colors.

Thats funny, I remember from when I visited a few years back the Parliament distinvly had a tan/brownish color, as can be seen on most pictures on the wikipedia page and elsewhere. On other photos, like the first image on the wiki page, the Parliament is rather whitish. Maybe it was repainted recently?

[Dornbi]

Depends on which picture you look at :)

Here it's light gray:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Parlament_with_bus_on_Danube.jpg

Here it's tan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Budapest_panorama01.jpg

As said, my preference would have been light bluish gray. But probably it would look nice in tan as well.

Thats funny, I remember from when I visited a few years back the Parliament distinvly had a tan/brownish color, as can be seen on most pictures on the wikipedia page and elsewhere. On other photos, like the first image on the wiki page, the Parliament is rather whitish. Maybe it was repainted recently?

[Yooha]

Nice to see a hungarian building here, thanks!

[Ecclesiastes]

Nice to see a hungarian building here, thanks!

Even better when making such mocs! Great job!

[Nagyzee]

Thats funny, I remember from when I visited a few years back the Parliament distinvly had a tan/brownish color, as can be seen on most pictures on the wikipedia page and elsewhere. On other photos, like the first image on the wiki page, the Parliament is rather whitish. Maybe it was repainted recently?

It's not painted. The building went through a decades' long renovation during which most of the old discoloured, dirty and degrading limestone blocks (that are used to cover the brick walls) were removed and replaced by new ones, and the few that remained were cleaned.