Ernő Tóth: Steve Jobs, 2011 (bronze)

Graphisoft owes a lot to Jobs. It had the opportunity to exhibit its three-dimensional design program at the 1984 CEBIT in Hannover at  Apple’s booth. Jobs carefully examined the program, then decided to give support to the little Hungarian company. Remembering this, Graphisoft erected the statue at the entrance of its headquarters when Jobs passed away 26 years later, thus paying its respect to the giant of information history. In front of the statue there is a panel symbolizing an iPad with one of his famous quotes on it, speaking to his colleagues: „The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”

The artist speaks of his work:

„The work has a natural style, it shows the late leader of Apple in a characteristic, emblematic pose, in a dynamic, presenting move of stepping forward. Not only the motion – hand gesture especially – will be characteristic, but his clothing also: I depicted Steve Jobs in a turtleneck, scarf and sneakers.”

Ernő Rubik: Rubik’s Cube statue, 2010 

The symbol of Hungarian creativity, the statue of Rubik’s Cube was placed near the main entrance of the park. The 10 meters tall creation made from chrome steel tubes is Rubik’s world-famous magical cube put into modern plastic art. The gigantic installation was designed by the inventor himself.

Tamás Körösényi (1953-2010): Lead Casting on the New Year’s eve of 2000 

The work of sculptor Tamás Körösényi stands at the end of the park, on the Danube bank. The two meters long piece standing on a small pedestal resembles a „drop” of lead.

The sculptor evoked an old tradition, where on the eve of the New Year liquid lead into was dribbled into cold water, which solidified in most various shapes. They then tried to read the future from these irregular formations – the shapes were endowed with simple and direct meanings. On the New Year’s eve of 2000 at midnight the artist poured lead into a glass of cold water; he then magnified the form that came about as a symbol of his momentum projected into the future. 

The work was originally featured on an exhibition in the lake in Városliget titled „With Art to the New Millenium”, and it arrived to Graphisoft Park from there after.

Ernő Tóth: Endgame, chess-playing clowns, 2010 (bronze)

This work of Ernő Tóth, painter and sculptor, was placed next to an artificial lake. The composition is not placed on a pedestal, it stands directly on the gravelly promenade where viewers can identify with the chess-playing master and his student. The statue is characterized by the indicative finger of the master and the focused attention of the student. On the board a real endgame situation is laid out, a competition has already been held in the Park among chess players for finishing the game. In the heat of the match two pieces have already fallen on the ground. One may feel the urge to put them back on the board, but they are fixed there by little wires.

Zsófia Farkas: Remembrance of the Big Fish

The Municipality of Budapest started the autumn of 2017 with a huge contemporary art installation floating on the Danube: the winning work of the Danube installation competition, Zsófia Farkas's sculpture composition titled “Memory of Big Fish”, was born..

The installation brought a new dash of colour to the section of the river in front of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics from the end of June of 2017. Its overt goal was to draw attention and appreciation to all the pieces of art around us and the Danube for its emblematic contribution to the character of Budapest, its connecting and functional role in community and culture.

With the advent of winter, the statues found a new home in Graphisoft Park.

The artist presents her work:

“As is common knowledge, the one-time legendary fish species of the Danube have already gone extinct: The Beluga and other sturgeons, or the giant-size catfish. If a specimen still appears from time to time, it is considered a miracle. The relationship between man and big fish is seen as mystical, from ancient myths through the biblical story of Jonah to the world of fairy tales. The big fish is the equivalent of the “wise old man” or the “firstborn” character, equipped with some kind of time-transcendent wisdom and magical power, and whose appearance signifies in one’s life a warning, or even a life-changing turn. Let’s play with the thought a bit then: in times past there was a world in which was ruled by the spirit of Unity and Nature, and magical creatures dwelled in it, the Big Fish of the Danube included. These beings, or their spirits return to Budapest now in 2017, in order to let their presence remind us: we only borrowed the time and space we live in, and one day we will have to answer for all these. “

Sebestyén Márffy: Laboratory, 2020 (Carrara marble)

In 2019, one of the largest tenants of the Park, the Hungarian subsidiary of the French pharmaceutical company Servier, announced a tender for a statue to be erected in front of its headquarters, which was intended to symbolize the company's activities. Winner of the competition was Sebestyén Márffy's Laboratory, purchased by Servier later. “As a main motive, I used one of the defining tools of the laboratories, the flask, and the system in which this object is located; the strict, intertwined system of machines, pipes and scaffolding. I divided the outer, enclosing masses into larger planes that surround an inner, articulated structure. These disciplined, geometric planes are broken by the curved, more organic, more dissolved shape of the flask, referring to the processes taking place inside of it. I envisioned the physical aids of research as a network of intellectual pathways that appear in the sculpture,  as a network so to say of articulated planes, masses, and lines. The light-shadow contrast appearing on the forms divided by marked plastic jumps and the continuous change of their shapes as a function of the constant movement of the sun further strengthen the perception of internal processes in relation to the external, static structure. ” confesses the creator.

Norbert Kotormán: The Jaded Heracles, 2009

The work of Norbert Kotormán was placed in the larger space in the middle of the park, in front of the lake. The modern bronze statue depicts Heracles, the greek mythological hero with his weapon, the club.

„The artist professes: The customer had a curious attitude. I was told to work out something for the park. This is real creative freedom. I made a statue that came to mind from the milieu. This was „The Jaded Heracles”. We had to make the size proportionate to the large space. The huge Hungarian and international companies working in Graphisoft Park create gigantic things. It wasn’t easy to find a theme worthy to them.”

Benedek Barabás: Metamorphosis 2020 (bronze)

The second place in Servier’s competition (see the description of the sculpture “Laboratory”) was this sculpture, purchased by Graphisoft Park and erected next to one of its cafes.

“Soft, organic forms prevail in the sculpture, in which a swirling form, cut by bubbles, emerges from the base mass (stream of life). I lifted the swirling mass cut by the bubbles from the base plane. In contrast to the missing material (the negative spheres, bubbles), I placed an intact, regular sphere in the center of the statue. In the sculpture, the negative hemispheres are reminiscent of the spherical joints of human bone, such as the joints of the tibia and the pelvis. During the plastic formation I tried to create the balance of the random shapes and surfaces created during the stabilizing patterning, grinding and carving, the right proportion. ” confesses the creator.

György Szloszjár: Aqueduct 2007 (Water Engineering: Ganzhydro Kft.)

We undertook the design of the central part of the park. An important element of our plan was to establish a large, central water surface - a lake with a natural effect - to complement the existing terrain and hills. The Aqueduct concept was developed during the design of the water equipment, which also serves to refresh the water in the lake, as a reference to the nearby Roman settlement of Aquincum. The choice of material fell in line with the lightweight structure on the steel lattice girder, on which a brushed, stainless steel sheet cladding forms the monolithic geometry. In the selection of the quality of the cover consideration was paid to reflect the environment, to assume the role of a contemporary park element, creating a different image and atmosphere in accordance to the changes in the time of day and the weather.

Ernő Tóth: Big Fish, 1998 (bronze)

An interesting feature of the sculpture is the depiction of an anthropomorphic half-human, half-fish resting on a reed, its effect is air-labile, a bubble is seen in the fish's mouth, which symbolizes the fish's equal need for oxygen. The curiosity of the surface of the sculpture is the original scales of money, which also spill onto the pedestal in some places.

Ernő Tóth: Bust of Mr. Rátz, 2015 (bronze)

László Rátz was a legendary teacher in the beginning of the 20th century, who taught mathematics to multiple of our great scientists, when they were high schoolers. Among his students were the Nobel laurates Dénes Gábor and János Harsányi, and last but not least one of the fathers of the digital computer, János Neumann. Mr. Rátz is to be thanked for the worldwide fame of Hungarian mathematics education and so a lifetime achievement award named after and commemorating him was founded by three Hungarian companies, Gedeon Richter Plc, Ericsson Hungary and the Park’s founder) software company Graphisoft. His bust was commissioned by one of the Park’s tenants, AIT-Budapest, placing it in a wall cabin in the main hall of the school. The moustache - fashionable in the era - evokes the respectablegentleman and at the same time the lyrical portrait is a little out of symmetry, thus avoiding rigidity.

Word War I Memorial

During the rebuilds, we came across this World War I statue among the ruins, commemorating the victims of the gas factory workers. In the spirit of preserving the traditions, we have renovated and re-erected this monument.

At the beginning of the World War I, the city's gas supply was still smooth, although the shadow of the war was increasingly settling on the factory. Military conscripts took the best of the workers one by one. 56 officers and 450 workers marched from the factory to the battlefield, so the lack of specialists was a major concern. Prisoners of war deployed to replace the workforce did not replace the knowledge already acquired by skilled workers in this field. (72 of the gas factory workers commanded on the fronts died heroic deaths.

The monument was inaugurated on  25 May, 1926 by Deputy Mayor János Buzáth.

Satoshi Nakamoto by Réka GERGELY and Tamás GILLY (2021)

Some thoughts on the statue of Nakamoto Satoshi

"When András Györfi approached us with the task of making a statue of Nakamoto Satoshi, many ideas came to us.

As we both make basically abstract sculptures and our work is characterized by a clean, concise approach, we have tried to align this line with the customer's ideas.

This is how the final form of the sculpture was formed, in which certain conceptual and formal elements of traditional portrait sculpture and contemporary art appear simultaneously.

Since it is not known exactly who Nakamoto Satoshi can be, we formulated the main characters in a restrained, almost indicative way when designing the face of the statue. We were able to validate the customer concept that “we are all Satoshi” technically by polishing the bronze portrait. Thus, when the observer encounters the statue, they can see themselfs reflected in it,  becoming a part of the “Nakamoto Satoshi phenomenon”.

Kristóf Kecső: Stack (2023)

Kristóf Kecső's exciting work enriches the Park's contemporary sculpture collection from 2023.

Walking Stone

A new sculpture stands in Graphisoft Park, Budapest. András Mohácsi's work is made of granite blocks. The work, completed in 2013, is particularly interesting because the standing stones that form the main elements of the work were originally the stones of the parapets of the Széchenyi Chain Bridge. The sculptor used the old, broken stone blocks to create his sculpture. On the one hand, the work is abstract, i.e. it is not a direct representation of something already known and existing. Yet, we can certainly interpret two cultural layers of the work. The formal and structural grammar of the work, as well as the information we can find, also gives us an insight into the recent history of the stones.

Two stone columns stand on top of each other, protruding from the horizontally arranged stone slabs. The columns are held together by a smaller block of stone. The overall effect of the sculpture is as if it were moving, floating slightly forward in space in relation to the building block behind it. The horizontally positioned base stone elements appear to rise out of the ground like tectonic plates above the surface of the park. Two narrow vertical stone columns rise above these horizontal elements. The lower element, slightly tilted forward, supports the longer, almost upright stone column. In their interaction, the stone elements, like the members of a man stepping forward, twist slightly in relation to each other, evoking in the viewer the image of movement in a given direction.

The structural assembly of the sculpture carries a static message. Just as we can only feel the invisible air around us, we are rarely aware of the gravity that invisibly defines us. One of the virtues of András Mohácsi's work is that when we see his sculpture, we feel almost directly the weight of the blocks, the logic of the stacking, and also that there is a static tension in this sculpture, and that tension is built on opposites. The stacked stones are almost unhinged, but they are not, the blocks are palpably heavy, and yet there is a moving lightness to the whole work. And the logic of the assembly can be read from the outside, i.e. the application of static principles can be seen when looking at the work.

Preserved as restored. According to the artist, he bought two broken blocks of granite from a stone quarry in Dunaalmás around 2000. He had been looking at these stones, carved in profile, for years and slowly developed a plan for the composition he would create from them. The original plan was to remove the profiles completely. According to Mohácsi, as he began to carve these profiles off the stones, one day, while crossing the Széchenyi Chain Bridge in Budapest, he noticed that he had bought two original and broken copies of the parapets under the stone columns at the bridge's approach.

After that, the plan for the sculpture changed. The sculptor cut off the original profile of the original stone elements, some of the articulations, but in some places he kept the original surface of the stone elements of the parapet. The two stones, which had once been broken, were fitted together and joined by a mortise and tenon joint. It is fair to say that we can see the material elements of the history of the Chain Bridge appear in this sculpture. The sculpture is an abstract work with its own formal message, yet it also has a narrative context. Like any human activity, a work of art is open to interpretation. This sculpture conveys to us not only a formal and structural message. We can also see in it an attempt to represent historical memory through artistic expression.

The Széchenyi Chain Bridge has been rebuilt several times. In 1945, during the siege of Budapest in World War II, the bridge was blown up by the German military. It is probable that the damaged original stone elements were brought to Dunaalmás in Northern Hungary during the post-war reconstruction of the bridge. Now the damaged elements have been restored and returned to Budapest. The Chain Bridge is a national symbol of Hungary. This bridge is more than just a transport route between the two sides of the Danube. The bridge, finally opened in 1849, is a symbol of Hungarian enlightenment and civilisation.

Graphisoft Park is more than a combination of buildings and a freely accessible park. It is also home to Budapest's largest independent collection of outdoor sculpture. This free-to-visit park and sculpture collection sends a message of civic independence.

András Mohácsi's Walking Stone, a stone sculpture stepping through time, is on display in the Graphisoft Park collection.

Graphisoft Park is more than a combination of buildings and a freely accessible park. It is also home to Budapest's largest collection of contemporary outdoor sculpture. This free-to-visit park and sculpture collection sends a message of civic independence.

András Mohácsi's Walking Stone, a stone sculpture stepping through time, is on display in the Graphisoft Park collection.

The artist's work can be followed here:

mohácsi.art