Sordo Madaleno, építész stúdió, and Buro Happold have received a world competitors to design a brand new assortment heart for the Hungarian Museum of Pure Historical past (HMNH) in Debrecen, Hungary. Debrecen is roughly 120 miles east of Budapest and is Hungary’s second largest metropolis.
The forthcoming assortment heart will measure 463,000 sq. ft and host over 11 million objects for storage and research. It will likely be positioned within the College of Debrecen Science Park and increase the Hungarian Museum of Pure Historical past flagship constructing now underway by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG).
The choice by Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to relocate the HMNH from Budapest, the place it’s been for 200 years, to Debrecen was marred by controversy when the challenge was introduced in 2020. BIG received a world competitors to design the HMNH in 2025; the flagship constructing is now within the design part.
For the brand new assortment heart in Debrecen that may increase the HMNH flagship, Sordo Madaleno ideated an “elongated rectilinear constructing” meant to be learn as “a stable, elemental and timeless design,” the workplace mentioned in a press release.
The competitors jury credited Sordo Madaleno, a third-generation Mexican workplace based mostly in Mexico Metropolis and London, with delivering a design that prioritizes sustainable practices and safety.
Guests will enter the middle by way of a multi-story atrium; inner courtyards will regulate daylighting. Cumulatively the constructing could have 92,000 sq. ft of archival house and 20,000 sq. ft of research house. It’ll rise three tales above grade and have a basement stage. The highest flooring might be lit by an atrium.
From afar, the gathering heart might be outlined by its striated brick facade with intricate patterning. Its materiality evokes Hungarian clay vessels, Sordo Madaleno said. This symbolizes the middle’s meant perform “to guard and incubate” treasured artifacts.
Renderings present fossils and different artifacts lining rectilinear shelving. Fernando Sordo Madaleno mentioned in a press release: “The Centre’s employees are stewards of the objects, and the structure turns into an extension of that stewardship.”
“Inside this layered ecology of care, the item is framed not as an remoted artifact however as an embodiment of life-worlds and landscapes that nourish reciprocal relationships,” Sordo Madaleno added. “Our constructing displays this mutuality, offering an area of unity between conservator, stakeholder, structure, and surroundings.”
