The Hello Wood Festival has always been a unique community experience that goes beyond traditional summer camps, inviting participants to learn the philosophy of “learning by doing” and to create and learn together. It aims to promote the construction process as a platform for discussion, innovation and exchanging knowledge. Hello Wood Festival is a democratic opportunity to connect different generations, designers and artists with various cultural, academic and professional backgrounds.
In 2023 we examined the connections between construction and demolition, intervention and naturalness, and absence and replenishment, in order to reflect on the ecological circumstances of the Balaton Uplands region and call attention to the relationship between human-environment-future. The concept deals with the festival site – an abandoned basalt mine on Haláp. The wounded landscape points out an exciting contradiction: the production of building materials inevitably involves demolition. Since our daily lives are fundamentally reinterpreted by pandemics, wars, economic crises and global warming, the issue of demolition and reconstruction is not only relevant from an architectural point of view but from a social one as well. The Builder Summit was organised with the support of the Veszprém-Balaton 2023 European Capital of Culture.
For the first time in the history of the festival, Hello Wood created its own central installation. The ‘Monument of Builders’ is all in one – it’s the sanctuary of construction, the centre point of the festival, a community space, a party temple and the spiritual middle of the crater.
The installation resembles a campfire representing the heart of the revived mountain – a symbol of community, of gathering, a place nourished by the presence of visitors. As the post-apocalyptic mine of Zalahaláp comes to life again, the flaming pyramids of Hello Wood transform the desolate landscape into a cult pilgrimage site where weary hikers can stop and rest.
