László Baán

László Baán, director-general of Hungary's Museum of Fine Arts, was appointed government commissioner on 1 October 2011, and ministerial commissioner from August 2012, to lead the Liget Budapest project, a museum-quarter development in Budapest's City Park. The project's estimated cost rose from 10-15 billion forints in 2011 to roughly 70 billion forints for the museum quarter alone by 2013 (about 120 billion forints including park redevelopment), while openings originally planned for 2018-2020 slipped by years. The project drew criticism from the Hungarian chapter of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA) for lacking impact studies and prior professional consultation, from architects including Erick van Egeraat over the City Park site and concept, and from a 2015 district petition that gathered 15,000 signatures against building in the park, though a court blocked the resulting referendum. In September 2025, Hungary's Public Procurement Decision Committee fined the Museum of Fine Arts more than 50 million forints for buying six artworks worth a combined 1.879 billion forints without a public tender. Baán called the tender requirement unrealistic and said the museum would pay the fine while disputing the underlying EU rule.