Albert Fekete

Professor at the Institute of Landscape Architecture, Urban Planning and Garden Art Budapest, Department of Garden Art and Design, MATE; Doctor in Landscape Architecture (PhD) and in Architecture (DLA), advisory member and PhD supervisor of the Landscape Architecture and Landscape Ecology Doctoral School, guest lecturer in over 20 international universities, vice president and IFLA Europe delegate of Hungarian Association of Landscape Architects, graduated and licensed landscape architect, and licensed for renovation of heritage sites, founding member and curator of the Hungarian Garden Heritage Foundation.Active landscape designer with international design experiences, having more than 60 realized landscape projects in Hungary, Romania, Germany, Holland and Spain, awarded among others in 14 design competitions and winner of several national and international professional recognitions, among others the „Landscape Architect of the Year” prize in Hungary in 2012 and 2017, and the Europa Nostra Award in Research in 2014. 

Hungarian landscape architecture between two IFLA conferences held in HUNGARY, Siófok, 1984 – Budapest, 2024

Despite the Hungarian garden design and garden construction have their roots in the turn of 19/20. century, the Mihály Mőcsényi's definition of landscape in 1968 is only considered a milestone in terms of domestic landscape planning, which can also be interpreted as the introduction of the discipline of landscape architecture in Hungary.

Hungarian landscape architecture firmly entered the international stage in the 1980s, and Mőcsényi's leadership and active management role in the International Association of Landscape Architects played a key role in this process. The IFLA general meeting and conference, which was organised basically by Professor Mőcsényi and held in Siófok in 1984 with great success, was attended by a large number of international leaders and recognized professionals, contributing to the enhancement of Hungarian landscape architecture’s potential at international level.

In 1980’s the Hungarian landscape architecture entered the international stage not only at the level of representation, but also in terms of creations and plans, and established itself there. A good example of this is the international landscape architecture design competition announced in 1982 for the "La Villette" park in Paris, in which the faculty's instructors participated with high-quality design works.

The conference in Siófok, the consistent development of landscape architecture education and research, and the professional realizations as a whole contributed to the fact that by the beginning of the 1990s, landscape architecture as a profession appeared in the domestic public consciousness, the discipline of garden design became generally recognized, the discipline of landscape planning has a wide took root in the area, and the importance of green space and landscape planning activities increased more and more.

The purpose of the presentation is a professional historical review that began with the IFLA conference in Siófok in 1984 and continues to this day, which provides an insight into domestic landscape architecture education, research, planning and design activities, and the forty-year development of the legislative background supporting them.