Fosters and Zaha Hadid Architects among 12 practices to have entered second round proposals with winner to be announced within weeks
Foster & Partners and Zaha Hadid Architects are among 12 practices to have entered their bids for the second round of an international competition to redesign Hungary’s busiest railway station.
All teams to have made it to the second stage of the competition have now submitted their proposals for the redevelopment of Budapest’s historic Nyugati station.
The project aims to double passenger capacity with the construction of eight new underground tracks beneath the station’s main hall.
It also includes a new park, a reconstruction of Nyugati Square outside the station’s front entrance, a new parking complex and a major urban development.
Budapest Development Centre (BDC) a panel of experts will now evaluate each bid over the coming weeks blindly, meaning that they will not know which team submitted each entry.
Images of the proposals will not be made public until 26 March, when the winners will be announced.
Other studios to have made it to the second round include Grimshaw, Arup, John McAslan & Partners and a team consisting of Sweco and Dutch practice Gateways.
Hawkins Brown has also made it through on a team including Atelier Peterkis and Plant.
BDC said that almost all major European railway station development projects over the last 20 years has seen involvement from one of the final 12 practices.
They were among 36 applicants which submitted proposals to the first round of the competition, which was launched last autumn.
Nyugati station was built in 1877 by the Eiffel Company, the same firm which built the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty.
The station’s central hall, described by BDP as a “precious Hungarian monument”, will be separated from its tracks as part of the redevelopment and transformed into an open public space.
The scheme will also see the removal of a prominent overpass which bisects Nyugati Square to make way for a series of new tram lines.
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