Open Call

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the representative boulevards encircling the historic urban fabric became the key axes of development for emerging modern centres.

After the demolition of medieval walls and later early modern fortifications – after the cities were literally opened. The boulevards and the parks surrounding the old towns promised a healthier, more airy, dust-free environment. Along the elegant promenades, new bourgeois practices of using public space began to take shape. Buildings sprang up almost overnight along these ring-like streets – often competing with one another in terms of symbolism and ideology: seats of administration, but also museums, town halls, schools, universities, barracks, and further out – on the outer rings – additional military and industrial complexes. The circular structure of these cities was also a response to rapidly growing demands on urban transportation.

It marked a new and often very sharp social divide between the affluent core and the working-class outskirts. Yet, paradoxically, the same boulevards could also unite different social groups, creating a shared metropolitan experience. Travelling along the ring streets meant moving continuously within the city, within a loop of modernity that seemed to turn endlessly back upon itself. It is precisely here, at the intersection of the monarchy’s centres and peripheries, where the transfer of urban ideas becomes most visible: from major metropolises to regional cities, and back again, in a constant dialogue of forms, functions, and aspirations.

In our travelling exhibitions in Szeged, Kraków, Brno and Košice were presented the developing of the most representative cities with a ring boulevard in the V4 countries. Our goal was to interpret both the urban-architectural and social patterns of the ring boulevards.

In the closing scientific conference of the project we open the topic towards other examples in the V4 regions, including some examples from the cultural borderlands. We are waiting proposals both about case studies and comparative analyses. We aim to publish the presentations later in a thematic book.

The papers of our former conference on the topic you can read here:
https://architektura-urbanizmus.sk/issues/2024-volume-58-number-3-4/

Website of the project:
https://rings.mnl.gov.hu/

The conference will be held in Budapest, organized by the Hungarian National Archive. Travel (priority of train and bus) and full board will be ensured by the organizers, thanks to the support of Visegrad Fund.

Budapest, 05.01.2026.

Scientific committee:

Tamáska Máté, Hungarian National Archive (chair)

Ján Sekan Technical University of Košice

Kamil Ruszała, Jagiellonian University, Kraków

Adam Gudzek, Brno University of Technology