The thermal power plant of Inota was the largest industrial investment in Hungary in the 50s, and at its peak it could have supplied the whole of Budapest with electricity. Not only are its three huge, illustrious cooling towers familiar to anyone driving to Lake Balaton from the capital, but it is also worth knowing that their novel water-cooling technology was a revolutionary innovation at the time, winning engineers László Heller and László Forgó the Grand Prix at the 1958 Brussels World Exhibition. Thanks to Inota, these uniquely shaped cooling towers soon became widespread throughout the world.
In the largest courtyard of the dieselpunk-flavored industrial area, you can ease into the evening under a Bedouin tent, guided by slower, more mystical rhythms, as the setting sun paints the landscape behind the three towers.
The 60-meter cooling towers dominating the skyline once cooled water in a closed-loop system using air condensation, recirculating the chilled liquid back into operation. During our festival, they host a new light installation every year.
Fifty years ago, turbines rumbled here, generating electricity inside the 6,000-square-meter hall lined with glass bricks. By day, it’s a monumental exhibition space; by night, an iconic rave venue - the cultural gravitational center of the site.
The (not so) smaller brother of the Turbine Hall is one of our most important installation spaces where winding pipes and staircases merge into a large-scale industrial organism.
Our chill oasis transforms into the main dance floor from afternoon till dawn, under a light-pollution-free sky.
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The power plant included a housing estate - Inota even had its own postcode - and a beach and a community centre were also built for the families of the workers. In the foyer of the latter, 1950s mosaics by Gyula Hincz and Géza Fónyi welcome visitors to the theatre with its brutalist ceiling, said to have been the most acoustically sophisticated theatre in Central Europe at the time.
The former restaurant of the community center, home to the beautiful 1957 relief Körtánc (‘Round Dance’) by ceramic artist Margit Kovács. This year, instead of music, the space will host installations.
POWERHOUSE OF
SOUND AND VISION