Cover my horizon

Balázs Turai is a perpetual explorer. Not only in his job as an architect and interior designer, but in many aspects of life. His architectural explorations started at the Budapest University of Technolgy and the University of Oulu, Finland; and being practiced for the last 17 years at Minusplus, where he is currently partner and project leading architect. Other explorations are covered by long-distance cycling and hiking, travelling - with an unfading attachment to maps; and the constant recording of life as an amateur photographer. This occasionally culminates in collection projects with the focus on architecture, urbanism and landscapes.

Rarely do we think about the horizons we see around. The skyline of our town, that surrounds us every day. We only realise its ordinariness by the changes. But then it’s too late, the usual sight is gone, the new is there to get used to. For many citizens of Budapest the first skyscraper of the town brought such experience. The tower in construction had suddenly pierced into their ordinary horizons. Many did not expect the encounter to be that direct. When the new, ever growing building altered, overlapped, interfered or covered something as usual as their everyday view, it became far more than just the subject of theoretical debates in urbanism: something very personal. The first skyscraper is always a point of debate in any town. In Budapest the builders and the architects tried to convince the public, that the views of and from the historic center would be minimally affected. As if Budapest’s skyline meant only tourist photos. As if the city represented itself only by sights of the downtown, from the inside out. The locals living 360 degrees around the tower were forgotten. The @budapest_changingskyline project tried to open and democratise the reception of the change, surveying the real effects by nearly 300 photos taken in and around Budapest. Through a very narrow selection, this photographic essay shows how one single building can cover some of the most ordinary and mundane horizons: 01 west - agricultural fields by the city limits, 23.07.2023 02 north - from an open corridor of a residential building, 09.10.2021 03 south - fishing in a branch of the Danube, 20.06.2023 04 east - Rákóczi bridge access ramp, 27.04.2021