Avenue Gardens is a luxury residential development created through the adaptive reuse of a historic Neo-Renaissance palace on Budapest’s prestigious Andrássy Avenue, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The project was designed by Sándor Duzs at ArkTOON Architects in collaboration with Schön Architects. ArkTOON Architects is the predecessor practice to today’s Duzs and Partners Pty Ltd / MSK Architects. The project restores and revitalises the historic palace while introducing contemporary residential wings within the inner courtyards. Significant heritage elements—including the grand staircase and representative entrance spaces—were carefully preserved and restored, while new residential volumes provide modern apartments arranged around landscaped internal gardens.
Avenue Gardens is a luxury residential development created through the adaptive reuse of a historic Neo-Renaissance palace on Budapest’s prestigious Andrássy Avenue, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The project was designed by Sándor Duzs at ArkTOON Architects in collaboration with Schön Architects. ArkTOON Architects is the predecessor practice to today’s Duzs and Partners Pty Ltd / MSK Architects. The project restores and revitalises the historic palace while introducing contemporary residential wings within the inner courtyards. Significant heritage elements—including the grand staircase and representative entrance spaces—were carefully preserved and restored, while new residential volumes provide modern apartments arranged around landscaped internal gardens.
Avenue Gardens is a luxury residential development created through the adaptive reuse of a historic Neo-Renaissance palace on Budapest’s prestigious Andrássy Avenue, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The project was designed by Sándor Duzs at ArkTOON Architects in collaboration with Schön Architects. ArkTOON Architects is the predecessor practice to today’s Duzs and Partners Pty Ltd / MSK Architects. The project restores and revitalises the historic palace while introducing contemporary residential wings within the inner courtyards. Significant heritage elements—including the grand staircase and representative entrance spaces—were carefully preserved and restored, while new residential volumes provide modern apartments arranged around landscaped internal gardens.
Avenue Gardens is located on Budapest’s historic Andrássy Avenue, one of the city’s most important urban boulevards and part of the UNESCO World Heritage site “Budapest, including the Banks of the Danube, the Buda Castle Quarter and Andrássy Avenue.” The avenue is defined by its sequence of Neo-Renaissance palaces and prestigious residential buildings constructed in the late nineteenth century.
The project involved the transformation of a historic palace building—later used for many years as a school—into a contemporary residential complex known as Avenue Gardens. The design was developed by Sándor Duzs at ArkTOON Architects in collaboration with Schön Architects. ArkTOON Architects was the predecessor practice of today’s Duzs and Partners Pty Ltd / MSK Architects.
The architectural strategy focused on carefully balancing heritage conservation with contemporary residential development. Key historic spaces of architectural significance—including the entrance halls and the ceremonial main staircase—were restored to recover their original spatial character and detailing.
To accommodate modern apartments and residential amenities, new residential wings were introduced within the interior courtyards of the block. These additions adopt a restrained contemporary architectural language with simple volumes, flat roofs and vertically proportioned openings. The new structures are intentionally differentiated from the historic palace, creating a clear dialogue between heritage architecture and contemporary intervention while respecting the scale and rhythm of the surrounding urban fabric.
The development combines restored historic apartments with newly constructed residential units arranged around landscaped internal gardens. The courtyard spaces provide a quiet, protected environment within the dense urban context of central Budapest while improving internal circulation and spatial connectivity within the block.
Through the careful integration of restoration and contemporary design, the project demonstrates how historic urban buildings can be successfully adapted to meet the demands of modern residential living while preserving their architectural and cultural significance. Avenue Gardens contributes to the revitalisation of Andrássy Avenue and represents an important project within the design lineage of ArkTOON Architects and today’s Duzs and Partners Pty Ltd / MSK Architects.
