Picture Gallery and Exhibition Space, Esterházy Castle

Esterházy Castle is one of the most significant baroque buildings in Hungary. When visiting Eszterháza and catching a glimpse of the castle, the visitor’s first impression is the symbiosis of unity and grandeur. The spatial layout of the baroque complex faithfully reflects the hierarchy of its period usage. The size, ornamentation and central location of the prince and queen apartments in the median risalit exceed those of the nearby baronial aristocratic and guest rooms. In our case, the design task involved the more modest, single-storey part: the so-called horseshoe wing that originally provided accommodation for staff, and the side wing used as additional representative space. The use of these parts of the building was to change, in order to fit in with, support and strengthen the cultural functions of the Eszterháza Centre that operates it. The west wing is to become a venue for temporary exhibitions and will house support functions. The fact that the use of the spaces will change freed us from certain constraints and enabled us to move away from the restoration of the past. Our plan takes elements of baroque architecture, distils and remodels them in order to reinsert them in a new design. During the design process a special dialogue is initiated between the elements of past and present and they sometime clash, sometime support each other. The entrance hall was created by converting the swimming pool space constructed in the 1920’s. Easy access to the entrance hall has been achieved through the creation of a new door in from the courtyard, located along the axis of the picture gallery; this is similar to the other entrances from the courtyard. The entrance hall gives access to the cloakroom and toilet facilities, the picture gallery and a series of rooms that provide space for temporary exhibitions. A contemporary feature of the hall is a striking light installation, consisting of polished glass beads that illuminate the ceiling and the floor. Meanwhile the reflective, curving reception desk recalls a baroque illusion. The picture gallery was earlier used as a sports hall, but its original layout was easy to determine from period descriptions from 1784 and by investigating the remaining walls. However, there was no exact description of the roof joists available. After World War II, only the walls remained standing, and during rebuilding work a reinforced concrete roof was constructed. We searched for historical examples: the barrel-vaulted ceiling as a characteristic feature of the baroque was an inspiration for us. Its surface is divided into rectangular coffered panels, in which the sky often appears as the background of paintings. The sky stands for light, and in our design the clear white light appears in the frame of the panels. These coffers stand proud of the curved surface of the ceiling, and the gaps between them hide part of the mechanical ventilation system and the framework of lighting. Towards the western ‘cabinet’, the hall ends in a concave wall surface that is slightly narrower than the wall; that is where the exhaust ventilation system is housed. The baroque era was characterized by illusion, which often appears in space, on the ceiling or on the floor. Here the diagonals of the flooring look more fluid, while the simple panels of the ceiling appear solid. In the horseshoe wing, the octagonal porcelain room has been restored, re-establishing the sequence of spaces. The walls of three of the rooms have been painted with motifs recovered during preliminary wall investigations. The fourth room, closest to the porcelain room, has been done out in a pastel blue, as a kind of transition. The room immediately beside the entrance hall is the biggest and utilizes the space of the former library. Our aim has been to treat old and new as a whole. This is a decidedly pragmatic, rather than theoretical approach. We aimed to continue – sometimes even seamlessly – the story that those people living before us began. Ours is a kind of architectural narrative that searches for the connection between the historic and the contemporary. The new features inserted are similar to the old – if not in style, then at least in concept.