Kunsthalle (Műcsarnok)

This guide to the Kunsthalle in Budapest traces the building back to 1877, when Hungary's fine arts association founded it as a hall meant to own no art of its own, only host one exhibition after another under Albert Schickedanz and Fülöp Herczog's 1896 neoclassical roof facing Heroes' Square. You'll hear why that emptiness was the whole point of the place for over a century, and about the freezing night at the end of 2012 when painters and sculptors gathered outside holding a banner reading attention, cultural coup. It follows the protest that broke out when the government handed the building to a newly powerful state-aligned academy.