Having lived a number of years in Budapest before moving to Shanghai, I have always felt a special connection with the city. One of my interest in Old Shanghai has thus been Hungarian architects in Old Shanghai, in particular Lazlo Hudec.
A number of exhibition about Laszlo Hudec have taken place in Shanghai since the 2008 Year of Hudec in China that really helped rediscovering his heritage in Shanghai and then in Hungary. Laszlo Hudec story and work was totally unkown in Hungary when I lived there, but I have noticed more and more people in know about him nowadays.
Thanks to the continuous work of Virag Csejdy, founder of the Hudec Cultural foundation in Budapest (https://www.hudecproject.com ) and thanks the Hungarian-Chinese friendship association, a major exhibition about Hungarian architects in Shanghai is now taking place in Budapest. This will surely help to raise the profile of those Hungarian architects that found fame in Shanghai.
“Timeless Modernity — The Shanghai Legacy of Hungarian Architects” opened on 1st December 2025 and will last until 22nd January 2026. It focuses on the work and legacy of Laszlo Hudec but also Károly Gonda, Béla Mátrai & Rudolf Sömjén.
The exhibition is taking place in the China Cultural Center in Budapest:
Bosnyák utca 1
H-1149 Budapest
Unfortunately, I could not fit a trip to Budapest in my schedule during that time, but there are talks of taking the exhibition to Shanghai in 2026. I hope I will be able to see it then. In any case, this is a great excuse for a short stay in Budapest for old Shanghai lovers.
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This is very interesting.
In 2011, I visited Budapest for the first time,
and loved the city.
I was hosted by friends in one of their apartments
in the Jewish Quarter, across the street from the steel Weeping Willow tree with inscriptions on the leaves documenting the 788,000 Hungarian Jews murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust.
As a collector of Chinese snuff bottles and Chinese paintings etc., I visited the museum of East Asian Arts,
but was disappointed by the mediocre quality of Chinese arts on view.