Budapest’s Urban Planning in the Past and the Challenges of the Present

Abstract

This study is an edited version of a presentation prepared for the academic conference “150 Years of Budapest”, organised by the Deák Ferenc Faculty of Law, Department of Legal History, Széchenyi István University. It presents the chapters of Budapest’s 150-year history, the legal framework of the capital’s public administration, the history of society and architecture. The phases of the last century and a half of Budapest’s history can be viewed from many perspectives, allowing us to distinguish between interconnected periods of social development, politics and architectural history. The changes in the legal and regulatory conditions of urban development partly followed the technical and physical development of these periods, partly justified them, and the plans adopted themselves are important milestones. From the early regulatory plans to the most important planning developments of the interwar period, to the post-World War II era, the creation of Greater Budapest, the first general development plans and state investment programmes, we examine the capital’s regulatory system with the help of literary sources. We consider the renewal of the planning system in response to the changed circumstances of urban development in the post-1989 period and its impact on the territorial expansion of the city, land use, building density and the city skyline.