The name for it was determined by the townspeople themselves, who took part in an open competition. The abbreviation CET stands for the Budapest time zone, Central European Time, and is also consonant with the Hungarian word for whale. Due to the similarity of the shape of the building with this huge animal, this is what both the Hungarian press and the public call it.
The glass volume is built between two historical warehouses Kozraktarak on the Danube bank, in a place rare for Budapest, where the city is not separated by a highway from the water. Therefore, nearby the authorities decided to arrange an area descending to the river with terraces, although for this they had to dismantle the 20-meter part of the extended warehouse buildings.
The "whale" is located parallel to the Danube, so the architects see its smoothly rising and then falling silhouette as a reflection of the flow of the great river from the German Black Forest to the Black Sea.
The new building, which houses a conference room in addition to cafes and design boutiques, also has a city planning role: it visually communicates with the historic Gellert Hotel across the river, the nearby old Bolshoi Market building and the National Theater downstream.
N. F.
