Spora Architects and the M4 line in Budapest

Hungarian firm Spora Architects has designed two stations on the M4 line in Budapest. A visually striking infrastructure that is also very popular thanks to the wise web communication of the project.



The four young founding partners of Spora Architects have an open source approach to architecture and design, driving them to constantly communicate their work online. A successful strategy, underscored by the fact that the two stations of the M4 metro line in Budapest, Fõvám and St. Gellert Square, won the Architizer A+ “Best Building of the Year Awards for the Best Public Building” of the ArchDaily portal.





The new M4 line – first planned back in the 1980s – runs east-southwest to complete the metro system in Budapest, whose first line was built way back in 1896. The project management team had already determined the entire engineering system, leaving the architects who won the architectural competition to design the public spaces. Backed by an excellent network of relationships, the contemporary architect is also a networker and therefore designs relational structures; Spora became one of the five design studios selected for the ten new stations.





Spora Architects therefore designed to truly spectacular underground public spaces, both on the banks of the Danube, dominated by bare reinforced concrete – in an almost Brutalist style – so it clearly exposes the structure of a space determined by the actual infrastructure and its proximity to the river. The imposing nature of Fõvám and St. Gellert stations adds a touch of solemnity to the practical, sustainable idea of taking public transport to work or school.





Metro 4 is a long project in the making that has come to light after 10 years: in practice, the first work of this young Hungarian architects, completed only in 2014. In the meantime, Spora Architects has established itself on the contemporary architecture scene with other works that we will soon share with our readers.

(Christiane Bürklein)

author: sporaarchitects
architects: tibor dékány, sándor finta, ádám hatvani, orsolya vadász 
team: zsuzsa balogh, attila korompay project architects, bence várhidi, noémi soltész, andrás jánosi, diána molnár, károly stefkó 
location: budapest, hungary
general architect of the m4 metro line: palatium stúdió- zoltán er, balázs csapó
collaborators, consultants: consortium of fmterv, uvaterv, mott-macdonald 
client: budapest transport ltd / DBR metro project directory 
artist collaborator: tamás komorócky
photography: tamás bujnovszky