Posts Tagged ‘budapest’
Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
“He, who saves one single person, could also save the whole world” – This is the talmudian inscription on the memorial by the Hungarian sculptor Tamas Szabo for the Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz in the Jewish Quarter of Budapest. Carl Lutz worked from 1942 onwards in the Swiss embassy in Budapest, and together with the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg he helped 60.000 hungarian Jews to escape the holocaust. Some more photos from those times, including a portrait of Carl Lutz, can be found here.
Tags:budapest, Carl Lutz, holocaust, hungary, jewish quarters, memorial, Tamas Szabo
Posted in urban | No Comments »
Sunday, June 27th, 2010
You see, I like contrasts. But it’s not a purposeful act, accomplished by searching through the images and combining the most contrasty ones, no – such finds like the above are only meters away from the wonderful Mai Mano house of yesterday’s post.
With Tyler Monson I had a short exchange originating of the reactions he got on his 113 Reykjavik blog. My feeling is that there are very often two realities in an image: The subject matter as it was recorded by the lens, creating immediate resonance in the viewers, and the perception of the artist, realized through the way the images was selected and composed. What I show you from the things I’ve seen in Budapest might probably tell more about me then Budapest.
Tags:budapest, contrasts, hungary, postbox, street
Posted in urban | 1 Comment »
Saturday, June 26th, 2010
“Imperial and Royal Court Photographer” – at those times the a good photographer was held in high esteem. Mai Mano, who was allowed to wear this title, was famous for his portraits of children in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Now his house is the “Hungarian House of Photography” with exhibitions, a bookshop and the daylight studio, used for meetings and presentations.
Tags:budapest, hungary, Jugendstil, Mai Mano
Posted in urban | No Comments »
Friday, June 25th, 2010
Mikroszkóp Színpad is a theater in Budapest. While my wideangle zoom gets only rarely exercise, sometimes it proves to be a real asset. But the drawback of using it only rarely is, that I sometimes forget the basics, like in this case: The fastest f-stop was definitely an inconsiderate (non-)choice and introduced a lot of avoidable blurriness into the image. This is a major problem, as the lens is de-centered and the left side of the image is considerably softer than the right side. Still – point of view/perspective and dynamics make this image a keeper for me.
Tags:budapest, hungary, szinpad, theater
Posted in dahoam (at home) | 2 Comments »
Friday, June 25th, 2010
Thanks to the long midsummer days, light was sufficient even in the evening for some nice impressions outside the Gellert Bath. The lanterns seem to origin (as the building does) from times of Vienna Secession.
Tags:budapest, gellert bath, hungary, lantern, pool, vienna secession
Posted in urban | No Comments »
Thursday, June 24th, 2010
The coffeehouses in Budapest were inviting, especially now as it was neither crowded nor too hot. And with a good sense for design and a certain facileness in decoration they very often formed attractive places to stay. Difficult to resist for someone like me, whose engine runs on coffee of all kinds.
Tags:budapest, cafe, coffee, design, hungary, reflection, street
Posted in urban | 2 Comments »
Thursday, June 24th, 2010
The kickoff meeting for our project (EnerCity, at the moment of this writing in a preliminary stage) took place in the Technical University of Budapest, where we were warmly welcomed by Prof. János Szlávik, Head of Department of Environmental Economics. In his keynote he mentioned just in passing a small detail which still remains in my memory: We sat only 20m away from the place, where the planning for the 1956 revolution took place. And that thought influenced my mind when peering down into the hall where the statues of two former professors seemed to whisper, watched by two faces on the balustrade.
Tags:budapest, hungary, revolution, university
Posted in politics | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010
I am posting this from back home again. The trip was short, intense and filled to the brim with interesting discussion about our project’s features like thermal mapping of city quarters as a support for decisions to thermally renovate buildings in order to cut their CO2 footprint. Photography was for the fringe time, like early in the morning. At that time only some locals were already in the thermal bassins (they open at 6 a.m.) and the relaxing effect was proportional to the absence of other hotel guest’s idle chit-chat.
Built in the style of the Vienna Secession, the Gellert Bath was opened in 1918, and since then the thermal bath has changed only marginally. The thermal fountains in the underground provide the hot water for the basins since the 13th century, throughout the times when the Turkish occupied Hungary, up to the very presence.
Update: I added one more image from the Bath – I hope my fascination for the room and its colors gets transported.
Tags:budapest, gellert, hungary, thermal bath
Posted in urban | 7 Comments »
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
On special request from Martina, whose dry humour every day is a cause for a smile, just two around-the-corner images from downtown Budapest. The glory of some of the buildings is amazing, comparable only with Vienna or Prague. And just steps away you find buildings that have not been renovated probably since cold war times.
Tags:budapest, decay, downtown, glory, hungary, portal
Posted in urban | 1 Comment »
Monday, June 21st, 2010
On top of Gellert Hill in Budapest is the Liberty Statue, commemorating the liberation of Hungary from the demons of National Socialism, embodied by german troops and ‘special units’. The translated inscription at the foot of the liberty statue reads “Erected by the grateful Hungarian Nation in memory of the liberating Russian heroes.”
At that time the red army was. with good reason, welcome because in a long bloody war they had defeated the Gerrman troops. That this was the starting point of a long and bloody suppression, culminating in 1956′ (failed) Hungarian Revolution, could not be foreseen then.
Tags:budapest, hungary, liberty, national socialism, nationalsozialismus, nazi, statue
Posted in politics, urban | No Comments »
Monday, June 21st, 2010
A short business has led me to Budapest: A multinational EU funded project working on CO2 reduction by better energy usage has its kickoff meeting here. The first free hours I used for a walk through the center, which shows amazing contrasts between Gucci shops and decaying building blocks just within eyesight.
Tags:budapest, building, car, firewall, hungary, street
Posted in urban | 2 Comments »
“He, who saves one single person, could also save the whole world” – This is the talmudian inscription on the memorial by the Hungarian sculptor Tamas Szabo for the Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz in the Jewish Quarter of Budapest. Carl Lutz worked from 1942 onwards in the Swiss embassy in Budapest, and together with the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg he helped 60.000 hungarian Jews to escape the holocaust. Some more photos from those times, including a portrait of Carl Lutz, can be found here.
