Second landmark Budapest bridge to get floodlights

The UNESCO-recognized Budapest waterfront will become even more picturesque in the future, thanks to a new plan to install floodlights on the Szabadság híd (Freedom Bridge) after it emerges from a round of major renovations later this year.

origo.hu

An artist's rendering of how Budapest's Szabadság híd (Freedom Bridge) will appear once the current round of renovations are completed, and it is bathed in white floodlights.

While the lights which illuminate the landmark Lánchíd (Chain Bridge) subtly suggest the shape of the bridge, according to a report on origo.hu, the objective of illuminating the Szabadság híd is to highlight its special structure.

The bridge has four major structural elements: the pillars and the two spans connecting them, as well as the two "piers" which anchor it to the river and the portals above them. Specifically, the iron portals make the bridge unique. The turn-of-the-century finely crenellated ironwork on the bridge is famous for going up against the architectural trends of that time, when iron usually only imitated stone and wood. The floodlights will highlight the details of those portals, as well as the coat of arms of Hungary and the "Turul" birds that sit above the two pillars.

The color of the lights will probably be white, like those on the Lánchíd. Since most such floodlights in Budapest are yellow, this would create the impression of white bridges spanning two yellow shores.

In Budapest, the floodlights that illuminate public monuments are turned on from dusk until midnight between 1 November and 30 April, while between 1 May and 31 October they are on from dusk until one in the morning. With a capacity of 1,100 kW, the illumination of such landmarks costs roughly Ft 110 million (€440,000) a year.

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