MENTAL MAP OF BUDAPEST

Abstract

The definition of ‘mental map’ was initiated by an American architect Kevin Lynch who called it the most well-known and the most fashionable method to examine the subconscious part of the urban structure. The mental maps are essential and determining parts of our general knowledge. In our everyday life we use them persistently and everybody has them. They show, how individuals interpret the geographical surroundings, complementing the objective reality with a „subjective” dimension.

I was inspired by Cséfalvay – Fischer’s article Gipsy music and housing shortage – stereotypes and reality in the Budapest-image which was published in 1990 in the Hungarian Geographical Bulletin. In my survey this article was the basis and my starting-point. This way, on the one hand, I created a comparative analysis whereby I could examine the changing of the Budapest image between 1990 and 2012. On the other hand, the survey was a sort of supplementary work because no similar scientific work was created in connection with Budapest in the last two decades.

If we compared the completed mental maps with the 1990's results, the main consequences is that the strength of Budapest city center remained the same, so it did not change in the course of time. Still, transport networks and Danube-bridges fill the most dominant function in students’ mental map. Regarding the Buda side, it still appears as a „white spot”. To my mind, the determining buildings (landmarks) are missing from the students’ mental map. This does not necessarily mean that it does not exist. The territory outside the Grand Boulevard (Nagykörút) and the surroundings suburban areas are still regarded as „unknown land” in people minds where the majority of the knowledge can be attached to the public transport system and the main nodes.