The Ludovica Campus is the most beautiful symbol of everything that has recently been built around the country and in Budapest, “it beautifully demonstrates our virtues, without our flaws,” the Minister heading the Prime Minister’s Office said on Tuesday at the National University of Public Service in the capital, at the inauguration ceremony of the Ludovica Annex refurbished as part of the Ludovica Campus project.
“The Ludovica Campus is growing right before our eyes, step by step, building by building,” Gergely Gulyás added.
During its first five years, the project gave jobs to 10,000 people, and as a result almost 70,000 square metres of new building came into being. A net sum of HUF 34 billion has been spent on the first phase of the urban development project launched in connection with the Ludovica Campus, the Minister said, adding that Orczy Park which is open to members of the public has been enlarged by 100,000 square metres.
As the construction works progress, he continued, so is the university complex taking shape, and so will the campus be able to fulfil ever more complex functions. At the same time, the community of the university can avail themselves ever more of the opportunities afforded by the project, from the training of officers to an academy in diplomacy.
“Those who want to make a clean slate of the past also want to make a clean slate of values and the experiences of the past,” Mr Gulyás said, highlighting that we must preserve and use all elements of the past that are worth preserving. The Ludovica represents an historic chapter of the past, and it was a correct and justified decision to restore it both as regards what it stands for and in its physical manifestation, he stated.
The politician said the history of the Ludovica is a struggle to create an independent and responsible Hungarian public service.
In his words, the mission of the university of public service is to issue young people who are suitable and fully prepared for serving Hungary. This is where the future of Hungarian public service is unfolding, he stressed.
The head of the Prime Minister’s Office expressed hope that when they talk about professional state administration and a modern, service-provider state, the Hungarian State can rely on the graduates of the National University of Public Service.
It is crucial for the fate of the nation that year after year a community is trained here whose members are able to serve effectively and in their own time the free and sovereign state which is based on the foundations of classical European values, culture and solidarity stemming from Christianity, and subsidiarity, Mr Gulyás said in conclusion.
Minister of State for the Development of Budapest and the Metropolitan Agglomeration at the Prime Minister’s Office Balázs Fürjes said “the past ten years has also been a time of growth and construction for Budapest”. We are ready to continue the urban building work, he stated, adding that if, similar to former Mayor of Budapest István Tarlós, the incumbent city leadership also opted for cooperation and peaceful building, Budapest could continue to boast fine achievements. “The choice is not ours, we profess that Budapest is not a battlefield,” Mr Fürjes said.
The Minister of State stressed that cooperation between the democratically elected national government and the metropolitan leadership – even if accompanied by debates – is in the best interests of inhabitants of the capital.
The seventy years of the Ludovica – after we lost our national sovereignty in 1944 – was “a period of fragmentation and decay”. The communists “could neither swallow, nor spit out” the Royal Hungarian Ludovica Defence Academy as an institution and its building. By 2010, the historical garden created in the 18th century had been utterly destroyed; the park had become a derelict mess, Mr Fürjes said.
He recalled that they had started tidying up and rebuilding the campus and surrounding area seven years ago. Thanks to the careful planning and construction work, the Ludovica Campus has become more than a university, an entire quarter of the city has been revived: by the spring of 2018, one of Hungary’s biggest and most modern campuses had been built. Inner Pest’s largest public park, the Orczy Garden has been revived and extended, Mr Fürjes said, adding that Józsefváros “has become a more beautiful, more spacious, cleaner, greener, airier and tidier place which now offers far more sports and recreational facilities”.
He said the original façade of the annex now inaugurated has been preserved, and in the building with a useful floor space of more than eight thousand square metres, 21st century offices, seminar rooms, language laboratories and – preserving the traditions of the Ludovica – two fencing halls await students.
Mr Fürjes recalled the story of his father Lieutenant-posthumous Brigadier General Sándor Fürjes who graduated from the Ludovica in its last year of training in 1944 and who was apprehended by the Arrow Cross in the Ludovica building on 14 November 1944.
Rector of the National University of Public Service András Koltay said after a long time the annex has finally been given back the function it was built to serve, meaning that it will serve as a university building again.
Regarding the refurbishment project, he said “what happened is effectively none other than restoring the damage done by the storms of history”.
Mr Koltay recalled that the main building of the Ludovica military academy had been completed in 1936, and the academy had been the highest institution of military training in Hungary.
The building now inaugurated also includes 92 offices, 8 seminar rooms, 3 language laboratories and a computer room, he said, adding that with the inauguration of the annex, the university is “surpassing” its iconic campus at Ménesi út.