Balatonfüred is a city famous for its medical water sources. The Benedictine order - proprietor of the territory from 1866 – divided land into plots in order to establish a European standard spa resort respecting the strict construction requirements which resulted in birth of an attractive city center.
Archbishop Kolos VASZARY built in this area a manor house in 1892 surrounded by a splendid English park with a lot of species of plants. In 1928 the Honvéd Pension Fund, proprietor of that time, added to the manor an officer’s sanatorium. In 1957 the building became the holiday resort of the Soviet Army and was submitted in the 1960s to an extension by a reinforced concrete structure four-floor hotel and restaurant.
In 2007 the Municipal Government decided to reconstruct the reform period city center of Balatonfüred in order to render it attractive in cultural and touristic aspects. The European Regional Development Found granted to the project a non-reimbursable subvention with a 15,2% self-financing of the Municipality.
This project included the reconstruction of Vaszary manor and creation of a modern exhibition hall suitable for reception any art collection of the hight quality. After the demolition of the Russian resort a nice atmosphere park took shape.
We made effort to reconstruct the archbishop manor faithfully to the original as much as possible. In order to realize individual exhibition halls in the officer’s sanatorium building we demolished the separation walls. The decision on the cultural heritage city development was initiated by Balatonfüred Municipal Government that published the invitation for tender of design and execution. The design work of the reconstruction was obtained by UVATER Ltd. while VEMÉVSZER Ltd. got the execution work.
The cost of the reconstruction represented an amount of 600 million HUF, 2,13 million Euro.
The Vaszary manor has a unique situation, with view on the lake Balaton and Tihany peninsula, in the vicinity of the heart hospital built on medical water source. Beside the recovery the visitors are given a rich cultural experience in a exceptional environment. The exhibition hall offers the works of art of the most prominent Hungarian painters. Quoting the mayor “the local culture represents renewing resources, never exhausting value, because those who preserve it will be richer when transmitting it to others”.
