The gift shops of Hungary’s capital offer many types of iconic Magyar mementos, ranging from paprika pouches to flower-patterned embroidery to intricately carved eggshells – but none of them capture the city’s essence quite as creatively as the new “Air from Budapest”. With stylish packaging that features silhouette drawings of major city monuments, this ethereal product certainly can’t be accused of false advertising... and while the canned atmosphere may be a metaphysical novelty, the creators still managed to make it likeable, funny, and oddly appealing.
Considering that most souvenirs are never actually used for anything, “Air from Budapest” is actually just as valuable as many mementos from the Magyar metropolis – and since innovative design is one of the city’s most promising features nowadays, this stylishly created gas canister can be regarded as a rather avant-garde gift. However, while this humorous product may seem like the brainchild of a mischievous art student, the creator of “Air from Budapest” is actually a local office worker with a penchant for daydreaming and a funny memory from long ago.
“Air from Budapest” inventor Róbert Katona studied to be an economist, and then worked for a financial-services provider. We met him in an office building, and asked him about this whole madness and the product itself. “I got the idea when I was still a child,” he told We Love Budapest. “We were vacationing in Paris, when I saw ‘Parisian air’ packed into a sardine tin next to the Centre Pompidou.”
This happened in 1980; many years passed since then, during which Róbert graduated from Corvinus university and started working. But after a while – like many of us – he wanted to break away from his daily routine and try something new. No, he didn’t quit his job, and fortunately treats the whole idea quite casually – yet he managed to achieve something that the world’s most powerful dictators could never do: make people pay for air. However, sales are not the most important part of “Air from Budapest”, which is more of a joke than a business.
Nonetheless, Róbert wanted this to be a tasteful joke, so he looked for a suitably stylish package and graphic designer to create the all-important container, and after long months of work and a lot of invested money, they came up with the final designs. The results are simple, trendy, and easy to spot, with several varieties of vapor available:
Balatoni Levegő (“Air from Balaton”) comes in a greenish-blue tone, while “Air from Budapest” is available in five different hues.
While it would be difficult to verify the true provenance of this product, the 0.375-liter containers are actually “filled” at LakeBalaton and in the Buda Hills – so customers actually get what they pay for. “Air from Budapest” is genuinely pleasing to the eye, and its cheerfully cheeky nature is further evidenced by the warning on the back of the can: “Do not open outside, otherwise the memories may easily slip away!”
“Air from Budapest” is available in downtown Pest at the Mono design store, or send an e-mail to airfrombudapest@gmail.com for international orders to be delivered by air mail.
