Metro Three's interior design was a design icon of the '70s and '80s, before the concept itself even existed. The contemporary, poppy, bland, futuristic solutions, colours, shapes, surfaces and furnishings of its time have since been swept away by the permanent retro wave. The technical iron discipline of wall-to-wall reconstruction condemns these details to total destruction. What can be done?
Rebuilding is no longer an option, the technology and the will to do so no longer exist. The logic of the demolition process suggests another way. Removing the slatted ceilings, wall and column coverings reveals the true face of the metro, the real structures that until now have only been visible in tunnels and factory spaces: the tunnels, the steel tubing, the steel sheet insulation, the shotcrete, the slotted wall, the Mannesmann cannon barrel. What comes back, reinterprets, alludes, amplifies.
The Lehel Square station, like its sister station Nagyvárad Square, with its galleried, two-storey structure, is a unique architectural solution on the line, alongside the inner-city stations with their tubular-tunnel character and the outer-bark stations. The station is close to the bark and the platform is accessed by a simple single flight of steps leading down from the underpass. At the underpass level, in the station's overhead area, there is a gallery level, to which passengers could ascend several flights of stairs from the platform. This solution with a large passenger capacity was justified by the long-term plans, the new metro line (No 5) would have met the tram line here, but this was never completed, and if it is built, the current track plans indicate that it will not affect Lehel Square. The gallery is open to the platform airspace through large slab openings. In the meantime, much of the gallery has been used for low-demand commercial functions, but its viability has been significantly impaired by its proximity to the Lehel market. Pre-stressed reinforced concrete bridge girders above the gallery support the Váci utca and its intensive traffic, from where the line continues as a bark girder towards Újpest.
The current reconstruction focuses on the revision of the basic structure, modernisation and accessibility. The gallery level will be made accessible through the removal of intermediate stairs leading up to it, and its spaces will become part of the main ventilation system. The stairway openings will be architecturally retained, reinterpreted with Corten raw, rolled surface steel plate cladding 'splinters' to create a virtually uninterrupted sense of space, which will be perceived from the station platform. The splinters continue on the platform around the columns, incorporating fixtures, fittings and passenger information. The second staircase to the south will be replaced by two access lifts, which will take passengers from the platform to the subway level, from where a new lift, under construction on the corner of Victor Hugó Street, will take them to the surface. The corten steel sheet cladding will run all the way to the entrances. The material and shapes of the steel plate evoke and express the underground world. The use of hard, raw materials is a reference to the Hungarian protagonist Lehel and the "élmunkások" (top workers of the Rákosi era) for whom the station is originally named. The austere steel plate architecture is contrasted by brightly coloured surface paintings on the ceilings of the underpass and the track area, creating a warm and welcoming atmosphere. The colour concept of the reconstruction is based on the characteristic colours of the M3 metro, reinterpreted here in a unique evocation of the original enamelled tray metal cladding, in the "tanned leather" colour of Adél Németh (original designer), broken down into orange, sunny yellow and pink components. The orange in the north underpass, the yellow in the south underpass and the pink in the track area, the distribution of colours also helps orientation. The furnishings and the information system, the passenger information system, will be renewed, the platform will be rewritten in fine concrete with the original, characteristic metro chair.
Lehel tér station
Architecture
sporaarchitects Kft.
Hatvani Ádám, Dékány Tibor, Czigléczki Attila
architect team:
Tóth Máté, Ungerhoffer Dániel, Pomázi Dorottya
general design
PARAGRAM Stúdió Kft.
Csapó Balázs, Germán Tibor, Erő Zoltán (PALATIUM)
Accessibility:
Szabó Henriett, Babits Bernadett
Bench:
VPI Kft.
Nagy-Mihály Márk, Juhász Rozália, Vajda Szabolcs, Balog Kálmán
Signalisation:
PARAGRAM Stúdió Kft.
Bukovics Zoltán, Dávid Gábor, Polonyi Viktor, Csapó Balázs, Hartmann Gergely (PALATIUM), Szilágyi Klára (PALATIUM)
general design, engineering:
FŐMTERV Zrt.
Kovács László
Pap Zsuzsanna
Photo: Danyi Balázs
