Lantos Museum Pécs - MMA Architecture competition - Shared win

The site selected for the project was one of the most important urban junctions in Pécs, located next to the Kodály Centre and the South Transdanubian Regional Library and Knowledge Centre. The task was to create a building worthy of representing the legacy, life journey, and relationship with nature of Ferenc Lantos, the Kossuth and Munkácsy Mihály Prize-winning painter, art educator, and former member of the Hungarian Academy of Arts. Thirty proposals were submitted to the competition, of which three received awards, five received recognitions, and additional special prizes were also presented.

After studying the design brief, we realized that placing all functions above ground level would have completely filled the entire site. Therefore, several functions — most notably the museum spaces — were positioned below ground level. During the design process, only four architectural masses were elevated above ground, establishing a connection with the surface while preserving the openness and permeability of the area.

The circulation routes connect the surrounding key functions, including the hospital, bus stop, and neighboring residential buildings. These pathways intersect at nearly 90 degrees, creating a coordinate system that provided a strong conceptual foundation for the design. The ground-floor composition prioritizes the surrounding urban environment by ensuring public accessibility and maintaining pedestrian connections between the neighboring functions.

The underground level was designed through a purely functional approach, resulting in highly usable museum spaces. This level follows a different coordinate system from the ground floor, aligning instead with the contours of the site and the development boundary lines, rotating approximately 45 degrees relative to the upper grid. These two grid systems are organically interconnected and influence one another, rather than simply existing as stacked layers.

The spaces of the ground-floor functions extend downward into the museum areas below, while the underground spaces also visually and spatially connect back upward. This interaction creates a dynamic series of spatial relationships that shaped the architectural composition of the building. The architectural masses emerging on the ground level generate equally sized negative spaces on the underground level. These negative spaces visually connect the museum interiors with the street level above.