As a kickstart to the 6-month series on vacancy approaches organised by Lakatlan Budapest (Hungarian Contemporary Architecture Centre), Failed Architecture will conduct a 4-day research workshop on Skála Metró, a centrally located iconic building which is having a hard time to survive as it’s suffering from vacancy.

The call for participants is now open on the Lakatlan website. We invite people from various backgrounds to apply to participate in the workshop for four days (november 14-17). The application deadline is October 31.

The case
In our Budapest workshop, the research will focus on the Skála Metró building and its environment at Nyugati Square. Once the city’s most modern department store, today affected by the changed realities of commerce, shopping, urban development, real estate and architecture, it is struggling with its economic viability and reputation.

Skalá is a legendary chain of stores – regarded as elegant and exclusive in communist times – and an important actor in wholesale and retail trade, from the operation of gaming machines to the production of televisions.

Official opening of the building in 1984, and supermarket interior in the 1980s.

The Skála Metró was its most prestigious building. Designed by renowned architect György Kovári and constructed between 1976 and 1984, it is a large and well-known building on one of Budapest’s busiest squares. Its design was integrated with a complex over- and underpass system at Nyugati Square, connecting it to the square’s metro station, Budapest West Railway Terminal and one of the city’s largest shopping malls.

Skála Metró, 2013

Once the most advanced department store of Budapest, today its glory has faded. The building’s losses are increasing every year, parts of it are empty while the lower three floors are rented by a Chinese company in the garment industry.

The interior and the entrance to the supermarket on the underground level today.

But also radical events changed the fate of the building. After a temporary ‘ruin bar’ set up shop in the building in 2008, the cult club West Balkán moved there in 2010. This could have instigated some sort of a revival, had it not been that three people died there in a stampede early 2011 and the club had to close definitively. This event contributed to the already grown stigma of the Skála Metró building.

There have been several plans for redevelopment and changing the functionality, but none of the proposals were ever carried out. The building has an uncertain future, to say the least. The workshop will dive into the history of the building and vacancy in Budapest, in order to learn from the past and analyse the constraints and potential for future developments.

The workshop
The aim of the workshop is to understand the context and path-dependency of the building and the larger problem of vacancy in Budapest. During the four days, we will break down the history of the Skála Metró building. By analyzing different layers that influence it – the built environment, the social context, the economics, the reputation and the politics – a physical timeline will be created. The timeline shows the history of the case from various, interconnected angles.

The physical research result of our workshop during the Tallinn Architecture Biennale, Estonia.

The participants conduct the research with FA’s guidance, the input of local experts and their own investigations. This includes lectures, desk and archival research, interviews and field analysis. The timeline is the basis for further discussion about the challenges and constraints, but most of all the potential of the alleged problem and future scenarios for the Skála Metró.

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