Mupa Budapest | Tamas Dragon

How do you make an infamous part of a capital praised and vibrant with cultural life? Build a huge cultural centre right in the middle of the problematic area and the whole place is going to change. The recipe comes from other European cities and Budapest executed this plan perfectly with the Palace of Arts, now known as Mupa. This area had a bad reputation because of drug trafficking, violent crimes and other illegal activities. The plan was to deal with all the problems at once. Since then this part of Budapest is well-known for the Palace of Arts, for the National Theatre and many high-profile office buildings, as well as brand new housing projects.
This series shows one of the biggest cultural building of its kind in Central Europe.

This was a dream project for me as no one ever took the time to take interior photographs in the best possible light. I really tried to capture its essence, many times planning and chasing the best light that show how architecture interacts with light. The long aisles have the greatest light in the very early morning, while the spacious audience area gets the amazing sunset light in the golden hour.