Local services
András Kuhn, Debrecen’s chief gardener, has won the Landscape Architect of the Year award for the thirteenth time.
The public vote winner was Anna Eplényi. According to the organiser, Wienerberger Zrt., the Junior Landscape Architect of the Year title went to Evelin Hajdu, as reported by MTI.
The Landscape Architect of the Year award was established and is organised annually by the Landscape and Garden Architecture Section of the Hungarian Chamber of Architects, the Hungarian Association of Landscape Architects, and Wienerberger Zrt.
This award recognises professionals at the peak of their careers, celebrating an outstandingly productive period of up to ten years. The honours were presented at a gala event held in the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (MATE) ceremonial hall in Budapest on May 8, 2025.
A panel of ten professionals awarded the prestigious recognition, which includes a HUF 1 million cash prize, to András Kuhn. He is one of the founders of the Gardenworks landscape and garden architecture studio and has held the position of chief gardener in Debrecen for the past ten years. His primary responsibilities include green space development projects and strategic planning.
Evelin Hajdu was named Junior Landscape Architect of the Year. This year, junior applicants submitted entries for the competition titled Urban Oasis! How to Survive Summer in a Big City? The audience award went to Anna Eplényi, a lecturer at the Garden Technology Department of MATE’s Institute of Landscape Architecture, Urban Planning, and Ornamental Horticulture. She has been involved with the Children’s and Youth Fine Arts Workshop Foundation since 2001 and is currently its director. Over the past decade, her work has encompassed landscape visualisation, garden art, contemporary topography, garden history, and map art.
According to epiteszforum.hu, András Kuhn founded the Gardenworks landscape and garden architecture studio. He won the chief gardener position competition in Debrecen ten years ago. The city was already familiar with its planners’ approach, who wanted to achieve similar results in the development and modernisation of green spaces throughout the city based on the increase in the water surface of Lake Békás and the transformation of the area around the stadium into a public park.
At the time, the mayor called the active greening of the new central railway station and the transformation of Dósa nádor Square into a downtown garden after the car park demolition a current and primary task of the Chief Gardener.
Since then, his role as Debrecen’s chief gardener has focused more on green space development and strategic planning rather than planting flower beds. His official duties occupy his weekdays, but he does not neglect his design work. He uses digital platforms to manage his Budapest-based studio, apparently successfully, as several distinctive projects have been linked to his name over the past ten years. His career biography reflects the convergence of his administrative and design-oriented roles—and most impressively, his ability to harmonise them.
Source and photo credit:debrecen.hu
