Virág Molnár

Scholarship on contemporary populism has grown significantly in recent years, but its spatial and material aspects have received scant attention. My project fills this gap by examining two of the most politically charged symbolic spaces in Budapest that have undergone major reconstruction since the populist turn in 2010: the Kossuth Square area with the Hungarian Parliament in its center and the Castle District with special focus on the former Royal Palace. These case studies illuminate how urban space and the built environment have been instrumentalized in the service of populist rule by materializing strategically edited and sanitized narratives about Hungary’s imperial and interwar pasts. The analysis shows that these transformations of the built environment do not simply passively represent populist power, but their design, construction, and changing uses provide key insights into the broader political logics of populist regimes.

Website address: https://www.newschool.edu/nssr/faculty/virag-molnar/