5 great contemporary statues in Budapest

The design of this memorial for the 50th anniversary of the Revolution was chosen from over 70 proposals. It’s a conceptual and physical work that speaks to the man in the street. It symbolises the power of united strength: it can even break up the pavement.

This friendly little granite statue stands at a busy crossroads. It looks inviting to touch, and you’ll likely start scrutinising it. At second glance you’ll realise that the boy is looking at the sky, and that his bike is impossible to ride. No one would know how to handle it, but that doesn’t matter of course, it will stay here, like this, for ever.

This often-documented classic memorial is the idea of a poet and his friend, a sculptor. It commemorates the Jewish Hungarians who were escorted by Hungarian Nazis and then shot into the icy river. Before, invariably, they were ordered to step out of their shoes.

Gabor Sztehlo was a Lutheran pastor (1909-1974) who saved the lives of about 2000 persecuted Jewish Hungarians, most of them children, whose parents never returned. This impressive monument by Tamas Vigh shows different aspects when viewed from different angles: bravery, energy, dedication, and from one side you can see the figure hides a child.

This was the site where the executed heroes of the revolution were buried, many of them with their faces turned down. Conceptualist artist György Jovánovics won the design contest and built a unique memorial, with a marble rod in the middle, which is exactly 1956 millimetres high. (The height was authenticated by the National Measurement Authority!)