The main profile of PARAGRAM is the planning of transport architecture projects and other complex, community-focused developments. In addition to architectural, urban planning and landscape architecture tasks, they also deal with the development of wayfinding systems.
PARAGRAM Studio was founded in 2018 by Balázs CSAPÓ, Tibor GERMÁN and Annamária BRETZ. Their choice of name ('paragramma' = wordplay based on the exchange of letters; literally ‘beyond the letter’) faithfully reflects their liberated, yet deeply responsible and linguistically conscious basic attitude. Landscape architects Flóra POTTYONDY and Sándor LIZICZAI joined the company at the beginning of 2023 with the merger of Park Studio. PARAGRAM is the general legal successor of PALATIUM M4 Projekt, architect general of the stations of M4 metro line.
PARAGRAM's expertise is decisive in the architectural design of urban railways. In connection with metro, commuter railway and railway stations, their references also cover the design of individual furniture and of wayfinding systems. They contribute to the clarification of complex urban design issues through the preparation of master plans, strategic documents and urban studies. They took part in the renovation of several parks and public spaces in Budapest. They work in close professional cooperation with the largest engineering offices in Hungary, their clients are transport companies, municipal and state organizations, and a small number of private investors.
Project description in English
The Budapest M3 metro line is Hungary's busiest railway, and its stations are the most visited public spaces in the capital. Since the original design was an icon of the 1970’s and 1980’s, the line has become a key landmark of urban life. Its overall reconstruction was one of the most important urban renewal projects in Budapest in the last decade.
At the Budapest M3 Arany János utca station, the metro shows itself to the city: from the eight-story depth, we arrive not in a pedestrian underpass, but directly on the surface, in the pavilion building on Podmaniczky Square. One of the formulaic, so-called Budapest-type stations of the M3 line was originally characterized by experimental, yet restrained architecture in spaces with low ceilings. The comprehensive renovation refers back to this duality when it operates with contemporary elements. The inclined elevator inserted between the escalators stretches the available space, the slope is framed by stripped structures. The industrial atmosphere is present on the platform in a milder form.
The architecture is transparent on the facades of the surface pavilion with a green roof. Freed from the layers of papundek that had been deposited on it over the decades, the building connects Podmaniczky Square with Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Street as a covered-open space, and by joining the series of prominent green cassettes surrounding the square, it protects the interior of the square together with them. The hustle and bustle and the quietness can both be experienced in the environment that has been renewed as a tree-lined promenade. Carrying the association of wind-blown leaves, the fine, generative graphic pattern that runs along the new glass facades and wall surfaces of the underground station reflects on this urban oasis. The colors and graphic surfaces promote the connection between the underground world and the surface, and resonate from afar to the poem of the namesake János Arany, famous Hungarian poet: "so homely here!"
