In December 2023, the Hungarian Academy of Arts announced the winner of its two-stage, invited architectural competition for a new national home for architecture. The brief was to design the Magyar Építészeti Múzeum, a 27,000 m² cultural and professional campus on a former hospital block between Városligeti Fasor and Bajza Street in Budapest, steps from the Városliget museum quarter.
Out of 40 submitted entries, the jury awarded first prize to BIVAK studio, selecting a scheme that placed a single, archetypal barn-shaped volume among restored turn-of-the-century sanatorium villas, with roughly 75% of above-ground volume realised through adaptive reuse.
The building permit followed in early 2025. ZOA Studio was commissioned to produce the full visualization package for the project’s public exhibition, a show held at the Vigadó concert hall in Budapest, designed to bring the competition work in front of the general public.