Budapest’s Színes Város (“Colorful City”) civil organization works to beautify the often-dilapidated or drab walls that are found all around Budapest, with their biggest annual event being the street-art festival to be held for the third time at the end of August 2016. Sponsored by Royal Vodka, the group is turning three locations in Budapest into newly vibrant urban spaces with creative oversized artworks, including covering the abutment of Petőfi Bridge with multicolored murals, while city dwellers soon have the chance to select the third location to be decorated with brilliant street art.

A vibrant mural with a colorful sequence of geometric shapes turns heads on Pest’s Boráros Square after Színes Város decorated the unpretentious walls of the plaza’s underpass to provide a more pleasing sight to city dwellers, who pass by this major city junction on their daily commute. The 250-square-meter project was completed by three artists within five days with the use of 80 liters of paint, while the designs were created by local graphic artist Katalin Benkő.

The Színes Város organization came to life in 2008, and it builds on Hungarian artist Victor Vasarely’s Colorful City concept, a 1983 study series about making arts available on the streets, so that people have access to various artworks even outside of galleries. Since their foundation, Színes Város covered more than 20,000 square meters of spaces with multicolored murals in Budapest.

After giving an eye-catching renovation to Pest's major transport hub, plans are being formed for Színes Város’s second project to splash the abutment of Petőfi Bridge with colorful paint, so passengers aboard tram line 2 no longer have to gaze at the uninspiring surfaces of gray walls. The location of the third project has not been selected yet, but as a joint project with Royal Vodka, Színes Város will let Budapest citizens pick the most ideal space in Hungary's capital that needs to be enhanced by a colorful design.