This summer was pretty busy, because we worked on the restoration of our new studio, but in September we finally finished it! We are open!
NEIGHBOURHOOD
The place is located in the 6th district of Budapest, which is in the city centre near Andrássy Way, Heroes Place and a lot of embassies. We are next to an art school and amongst our neighbours are a tailor, a potter and a painting restorer. Our neighbourhood is famous about the magical garden of Hungarian University of Fine Art.
BEFORE WE MOVED IN
We found our lovely studio in a very poor condition in a typical 19th century house, it used to be the workshop and laboratory of the Hungarian Science Academy, but it has been unoccupied for a long time before we settled up here. The place got from the former residents a loveable industrial character.
MAIN IDEA OF THE REFURBISHMENT
The idea of refurbishment is following the philosophy of FABRIKA: we wanted to save every little details of the old space we like, and re-create everything which is not working practically.
WHAT WE SAVED
Most of the houses in the centre of Budapest were built in the mid-19th century, and you can explore the layers of decades if you start a restoration process.
First of all we had to destroy some walls which was build later in the 1960s, and we removed all parts we didn’t like, we created new floors and new layers of plaster – except one of the main walls, which we imagined as an exposed brick wall, so we cleaned thousands of bricks from the remains of plaster and since we have been in love with these 145 years old bricks.
One of our favourite details were the industrial glass beams as walls – we had to remove one row, but we used the old beams elsewhere, next to the main door. The other lovely details we saved: the minimalistic iron staircase which we just cleaned and re-painted, the same at the balustrade we just polished a little bit, but kept it totally.
There are some strange giant iron snakes on the ceiling from the 60-70s, we also hadn’t removed, they used to be the part of an old ventilating system, which was ending in two monster machines filling one room completely. We disassembled the monsters, and replaced them with one single fan, but we kept their tortuous tubes.
We saved all of the old power boxes and switches as well, because they are gorgeous and naturally they are working safely. Our new kitchen furniture was built from old industrial iron shelves left there by the old residents.
If you visit Budapest, check in, where open every weekdays from 12 till 6 pm. You can find here the address and map.
photo: Orsolya Boncsér, Balázs Mohai