19 Oct STEEL REPLACED STALIN

Memorial to the Revolution of 1956 – Architects: I-ypszilon – Year: 2006

This key monument was inaugurated at a highly symbolic site exactly fifty years following the outbreak of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. Here once stood the 10 m high statue of Stalin which was torn down on 23 October 1956. In the ensuing decades, the party leadership waved to “their” people from Stalin’s base converted into a grandstand, from which “Parade Square” also derived its imaginative name prior to its renaming. Today, steel supports “march” from the city park in the direction of the city centre; initially rusty, 1.9 m high and casually disbursed, these supports are increasingly nobler, higher and narrower. At the end, the steel wedge, which has increased to a height of 8.7 m, breaks open the ground where earlier people marched along. The columns, wedge and square paving signify differing numerical values: steel supports and paving stones have dimensions of 23 x 23 cm, while the wedge forms an angle of 56°. The concept behind and implementation of this monument point to an affinity with the memorial to the Holocaust in Berlin.