The new Campus of the Pázmány Péter Catholic University will be built in the Palace District, a highly prestigious part of the capital. To fit into a neighbourhood rich in historical traditions and to comply with the Pázmány heritage (he was an important figure in the Counter-Reformation in Royal Hungary), while at the same time creating a modern educational institution involved in the international scientific circulation – that was our double challenge. We decided to create latent and explicit forums that are open to everyone and provide a place for ideas to meet. Such forums are the spacious entry of the cascading auditoriums in the main educational building, halls that can be used for various leisure activities or as exhibition spaces, and the green gardens surrounding the buildings. The spatial extensions of the internal traffic routes, which open to the outside, the porticoes and the modern redefinition of arcades represent places of dialogue and interaction. Classical, archetypal forms and material usage appear – the piazza of the hall; an arcade, which is also an integral part of the cloisters of the monasteries; interconnected spaces and gardens; columns evoking tranquillity. According to our concept, the new Campus is a community-building venue playing a key role in students ’lives, integrating community spaces equipped with movable furniture, a buzzing agora, a public sports hall and a public park.
