Budapest's a great place! At least, this is what Barge Beach, set up on the Pest side of the Danube, is supposed to be communicating, but the message faded by the first week of August and not just because of the autumn-like weather. One after another, communication and production companies have been bombarding the city's leadership with the most varied ideas, although what works well in Paris, Amsterdam or London proves to be more of a painted stage set to cover up the ruins here. The latest Budapest attraction hearkens back to the popular barge beaches between the two world wars - though in those days you could still swim in the Danube. It also fits a trend - based on models from abroad - of attempting to make Budapest a cool town. Finally, it is another in a series of efforts to do something about the Danube.

Changing rooms in the car park

The idea of Barge Beach was first brought up as the city was writing its proposal to become the European Capital of Culture, but after Pécs won that competition the concept of a swimming pool complex on the Danube looked as if it might sink without a trace. Of the various PR agencies bustling about the proposal, it was Sygma that decided it would put the plan into action. Idea person and Sygma chief Éva Horvát pushed the scheme through with the backing of Judit Z. Halmágyi, an architect, a member of both the Budapest Assembly's urban planning committee and its liberal faction - and someone, like Ms Horvát, who knows her way round the labyrinthine corridors of Town Hall. (Spearheading the project for the city was Pál Steiner, head of the socialist group in the Assembly.) Making it work required the financial and political connections provided by the agency. A dozen government-owned and private companies had to be convinced that it was worth sponsoring the initiative in the middle of a recession.

The pool cost 260 mn forints (almost 1 mn euros). And the chief sponsors were public institutions and firms for which the PR value more than covered their contributions. In addition to the Budapest Spas and Hot Springs company, Budapest Waterworks, civil engineering giant Hídépítő, water park builder Tempero, pool product market leader AstralPool and the Wiking Yacht Club, a number of associations were also brought on board from Heart of Budapest to the Urban Landscape Group (the latter having most recently called attention to itself by putting a warming stone in place at Móricz Zsigmond körtér). The outcome, however, was an uneven one. The swimming pool barge was ready by mid-July and was a triumph at first. In fact, people had to be told to leave every two hours as the facility has a capacity of no more than 400 people. Now it has become clear that the only reason for its popularity is the fact that no entry fee was being charged until the end of July. As of 1 August, there were no more than 2-3 bathers a day willing to pay Ft1500 (€5.50) each for themselves and Ft1000 (€3.70) per child so that they could change in a metal container after stepping over tram tracks and crossing the extraordinarily noisy, busy and foul-smelling road along the riverbank. For that much money, one can get into a perfectly nice pool elsewhere, but the worse news is that this attraction will not make Budapest a better place. It will not grow ‘the area's tourist and residential appeal'. 

Sparks in the capital

The pool is the latest in a series of flashy ideas that have turned out badly for lack of a well-thought-out vision. Another example of this was when sand was brought to the Újpest riverbank based on the Paris model, though (up until their permit to use public space was revoked due to traffic and noise concerns) the organisers were unable to resolve the bathing problem on Pest Beach while the wind blew the sand away. TV personality Attila Till's firm, SuperGroup, have also put a number of concepts forward. With the joy over EU accession, for instance, they covered Liberty Bridge with grass, where visitors squelched across the bridge ankle-deep in water since the concrete under the turf could not drain off the rain.

Nor have we managed to say no to other trends sweeping the world. Finally caving in after years of resistance, the city's urban planning committee gave the CowParade the go ahead so that, after London, New York, Stockholm, Tokyo and Brussels, now the streets of Budapest were also being invaded by plastic cows. One of them was even positioned such that its buttock was directed toward the Basilica. A brand consulting firm acted as chief organiser for the parade in Budapest and its image designer was artist Gábor Gerhes, who most recently provoked Debrecen mayor Lajos Kósa with his statue at an exhibition there.

Nor was Budapest's proposal for the European Capital of Culture short on showy ideas. A project called Water and Metropolis was signed off by Iván András Bojár, advisor to the mayor on the city's image. According to the proposal writers, the Budapest beach represented a first in local government backing for grassroots initiatives and they had apparently seen comparable turning points when pedestrians took back Chain Bridge at weekends and when pavement cafés started to spring up in certain parts of the city making for a Mediterranean atmosphere.

The proposal was an attempt to reinforce this trend. It placed emphasis on ‘a reinterpretation of public spaces as urban life spaces' and understood the Danube to be just such a public space. The plan also saw the re-emergence of Mr Bojár's old dream of building a bridge that ‘redefines the experience of crossing the river'. (This was actually done in 2003 when SuperGroup built a pontoon bridge between Kossuth and Batthyány Squares.) The proposal's ‘positive structures' envisaged for the Danube represented event venues. This included an infobubble on the tip of Margaret Island and a swimming pool (now a reality), though with cylinders reaching the bottom to form ‘negative structures' filled with cafés and exhibitions. But they thought the most exciting bit would be the construction of a pool at the Citadel, which would ‘redefine Budapest's city of baths function and create a new urban myth'.

Street art and public art

Berlin, New York and Vienna all have floating swimming pools. The goal everywhere, besides providing a special experience, is to focus the attention of city residents on the river. The idea of Barge Beach was also sold successfully with this message: the Pest riverbank should become an integral part of the downtown area. In the major cities of the world, however, the everyday is shaped by a well-developed urban development concept. A case in point is Paris, where - as Gilles de Mont-Marin, head of the Rive Gauche Project, said at a Heti Válasz urban studies conference in April - it has taken 25 years of systematic effort to have the eyes of the city turned on the Seine. In contrast, instead of clean and liveable public spaces, building walls free of graffiti, civilised subways and tastefully renovated blocks, Budapest has for years been bending over backward to bedazzle locals and tourists with ideas that really only seem creative. Head over heels for the street art and public art movements, Mayor Gábor Demszky can be seen at all of their events: at the opening for Barge Beach he even personally splashed journalists.

The organisers see the floating pools as an urban experience, an example of urban landscape architecture, an environmentally aware project and a community event. Lately, TV station RTL Klub, having joined the legion of other media sponsors, is attempting to breathe life into the venture, but it seems that even spirited early morning beach football is failing to draw in more visitors. So all that remains is the after-hours dance club, though the neighbours have had their fill of the booming tutz tutz music. Previous plans had Barge Beach winterised with thermal water - for additional millions, of course - but this will probably prove unnecessary due to the meagre demand.

The 80 accounts handled by the Sygma communication agency, now celebrating its 20^th anniversary, include Auchan, Budapest Airport, the Office of the Mayor of Budapest, Budapest Spas and Hot Springs, the UN, the Delegation of the European Commission to Hungary, Euroweb Internet, Budapest Sewage Works, Kludi, Hungarian Official Journal Publishers, the MDF, Mol, the Monarchia Restaurant, the Mosolyország Foundation, the Hungarian News Agency (MTI), the Palace of Art (Műcsarnok), the Ministry for Education and Culture, Pantel, Political Capital, Postabank Leasing, Raiffeisen Bank, Siemens, Studio Metropolitana, Vodafon and the Wallis Group. The list brings Budapest's municipal and national government agencies together with key political and financial players. Quite a few of them had their hand in realising the pool project. Sygma's website proudly features both Barge Beach and MDF president Ibolya Dávid's message: Democracy is complete when it's not just the biggest voices you hear.