Nyugati railway renewal to create vibrant new quarter for city centre

Tenderstream member Grimshaw has been awarded first place in the competition for the renewal of Budapest Nyugati railway station. The winning design, in collaboration with Nautes Architects, WSP, Vogt and Turner & Townsend, was selected as part of an anonymous competition from a shortlist of twelve teams. Neill McClements, partner at Grimshaw, accepted the award at a ceremony in Budapest on 26th March.

The contest sought a design to increase the capacity of the existing station, preserve the heritage of its historic Eiffel Hall, and forge a connection to the city by injecting a new lease of life to the surrounding area. In response, the winning concept creates a permeable station campus which contains a series of car-free streets, walkways and squares, together with a public park.

With the area severed by the railway corridor since the late 19th century, the masterplan integrates new pedestrian routes across the site and the underground station. Central to the concept is the guardianship of the protected 14,000 sq m Eiffel Hall, which is repositioned as a public pedestrian space, incorporating cafés, a food hall and bookshop at ground level with central escalators guiding passengers to the extended tracks below ground. A new arcade celebrates railway engineering with an elegant long span roof structure soaring over the surface level station. Alongside the arcade, A 3.5-hectare linear park accommoates local uses including a football pitch and dog park. 

Mark Middleton, partner at Grimshaw, stated: “Central to our design concept is guardianship of heritage, adaptive reuse and humanising of the passenger journey. The approach developed through a collaboration of our London and Sydney studios and with local and international consultants, is one which protects and preserves the heritage of Nyugati Station and places its 21st century life firmly in the aesthetic of a civic space. Travel for passengers will no doubt be enhanced, but in parallel a new, revived destination for this beautiful, historic city will be created.”

Lucy Nordberg
Tenderstream Head of Research

This tender was first published by Tenderstream on 25.10.2021 here

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