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A forum on the project was held in Budapest on Thursday to review the functions of the building which is to be the home to a Chinese-Hungarian architects club, a Hudec memorial room and a restaurant.
The programme was assessed by the Hungarian architect Ernő Kálmán and two professors of Tongji University, Chung-Kuan Cheng and Sun Tsang.
The Association of Hungarian Architects (MÉSZ), the Institute of Chinese Architects (ASC) and the Architectural Society of Shanghai (ASSC) signed a cooperation agreement on the Hudec Villa in September 2010. The local council-owned building is expected to reopen as a cultural centre in February 2012.
Hudec designed more than a hundred buildings in Shanghai, among them the Park Hotel and the former American Club. He was born in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia, in 1893, when the city was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He studied architecture in Budapest from 1911 until 1914, then enlisted at the beginning of WWI. Hudec was captured by the Russians in 1916 and sent to a prison camp in Siberia. On his way to the camp he jumped from a train near the Chinese border and made his way to Shanghai, where he put his architectural training to work, first for an American firm, then for his own.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
