Müpa Budapest

This guide to Müpa Budapest starts in an unfinished, dusty concert hall in 2003, when conductor Adam Fischer walked in and declared it a Wagnerian Valhalla. It follows Gabor Zoboki, a musician turned architect who spent eighteen months quietly persuading Budapest's decision-makers and musicians to let him build a true symphonic hall rather than the museum he'd been asked for, working with acoustician Russell Johnson for three years on the design. Best listened to from a seat facing the stage's rising pipes.