Award-winning architects Sheila O’Donnell and John Tuomey said that communication between urban cultural heritage and contemporary architecture represents a key part of their design for the CEU campus redevelopment. The Irish duo spoke at an event entitled “The University and the City: Architecture in Context,” hosted by the Campus Redevelopment Office and the Cultural Heritage Studies Program on May 14.
“We wanted the plan for CEU’s renewal to reflect our history and the historic nature of Budapest architecture, to physically bring together the currently scattered parts of the University, and make it greater than a sum of its parts,” said President and Rector John Shattuck in his opening remarks. “CEU is rooted in Budapest, and we must be grateful and respectful of that,” he added.
In 2012, O’Donnell and Tuomey started exploring Budapest architecture in a quarry outside the city. The limestone mined there has been used in buildings in central Budapest for centuries, and will form the walls of the new CEU campus as well.

“We have to respect the principle of the old building so that the new functions can operate as creatively as possible,” said O’Donnell. She said she and Tuomey’s philosophy of transforming existing spaces comes through in some of their previous works, including the Irish Film Centre in Dublin and Saw Swee Hock Student Centre of the London School of Economics (LSE). With new additions to the University of Cork, an art gallery and a restaurant, they have created a conversation between the city and the university and brought the two closer together.
The design of the LSE campus building in central London posed a similar challenge to the redevelopment of CEU. The task was to create a contemporary building in narrow medieval streets which will only ever be seen in glimpses, never in its entirety. In 2014, the Saw Swee Hock Student Centre was shortlisted for the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Stirling Prize, and received the RIBA London Building of the Year Award.
In Budapest, the architects wanted the design to reflect the difference between Buda and Pest, the nature of the Nador utca block, the idea of permutability, the campus’ close connections with the Danube River and St. Stephen’s Basilica, and also the significance of the Nador 15 building as the visible “face” of the University.
Using an image of the seven interconnecting courts of the well known Gozsdu Courtyard in District VII, O’Donnell illustrated the role of inner courtyards that subdivide or connect blocks and buildings in central Budapest. Courtyards will play a significant role in breaking down the barriers between individual buildings and creating a “connected campus” at CEU. Current parting walls will be taken down and “meandering routes of courts” will link Nador utca and all the new buildings.
The Nador 15 building, the most visible part of the new campus, will provide an opening to the Danube, and with its library, auditorium and cafe, will be the most communal and social space of the renewed CEU. It will generate public engagement and a dynamic connection with the city.

“The new building will feel like something strange, new, and strangely familiar,” Tuomey said. The four-year journey of designing the new CEU campus began with exploring the cliff-like landscape of Budapest architecture, he said. Balconies and ledges pile up on the cave-like street level, and one might expect to see seagulls further up, he said, describing the architects’ first impressions of the city. The cliff motif was a core element of the first version of the plans. It survived in more subtle, developed form in the present design. As city planning in Budapest no longer allows upper levels to protrude from the plane of the building, O’Donnell and Tuomey reversed the concept. By giving up some of the property, they created a tiny social space on street level, outside the main entrance of Nador 15.
A building has to communicate and evoke a sense of belonging, Tuomey noted. After a series of rejected ideas, city authorities and CEU’s Cultural Heritage Studies program got involved in the design process. The architects had to revisit the composition of Nador 15 and 13 and focus on the relationship of parts and proportions, so that the facade of the buildings were divided by the same proportions. They also had to face the challenge of designing a public building in canyon, or cliff-like, streets. They took inspiration from Hungarian architect Bela Lajta’s oeuvre, including the Uj Szinhaz (New Theater) in Paulay Ede utca or Rozsavolgyi House on Szervita Square, for the street-level open communal spaces.
A few weeks ago O’Donnell and Tuomey went back to the quarry where their journey began. Tuomey imagined the design of the new campus imprinted on the sharp angles of the quarry.
“It’s already built there, we just need to bring it home,” he said.
In closing, Professor Jozsef Laszlovszky, of the Department of Medieval Studies, who leads the Cultural Heritage Studies Program, called the CEU buildings in Nador utca 9, 11, and 13 as “excellent examples of architecture” in the early 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Nador 15 will be an excellent example of early 21st-century architecture. The Cultural Heritage Studies Program is an interdepartmental, interdisciplinary, two-year master’s degree program intended to educate individuals who wish to become heritage experts and practitioners, offering a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches.
“We enjoy the continuous presence of old buildings in new ones,” said O’Donnell. We’re interested in character and how the old can talk to the new.”
“Every old building was new once,” added Tuomey. “A historic city is not a frozen object, but a part of a continuing conversation. Our building is built to last.”





