The renovated Wing Building was inaugurated at the Ludovika Campus of University of Public Service on 7th July, 2020. At the ceremony, Gergely Gulyás, Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office, spoke about the fact that the University will make good use of the opportunities offered by the developments and will be able to perform increasingly complex tasks. Rector András Koltay spoke about the renovated building as a symbol of restoration after the “storms of history”.
As part of the Ludovika Campus investment, the reconstruction of the Wing Building was carried out according to the plans of József Kauser made in 1886. At the ceremony, Rector András Koltay recalled that in past decades the Kossuth Artillery Officer's School, the Bem József High School operated here, followed by kindergarten training, and from the 2000s until recently the Raoul Wallenberg Human Vocational and Grammar School used the building. “Now, after a long time, it is finally getting back the function it was built to do, which is to be a university building again, one of the homes of the institution that is the intellectual and moral heir of the Ludovika Academy,” the rector said, adding that the investment is a restorative work: "what happened here is, in the end, nothing more than restoring after the storms of history."
"The whole of the Ludovika is renewed before our eyes (…) Before our eyes, the Ludovika Campus is growing step by step, building by building," said Gergely Gulyás at the handover. the Head of the Prime Minister’s Office said that the investment had employed a total of 10,000 people in its first five years, creating almost 70,000 square meters of new building. A net HUF 34 billion was spent on the first phase of the urban development launched in connection with the Ludovika. With the Orczy Park open to everyone, a new, green part of the city was created in the heart of Józsefváros, the local district of Budapest. As construction progresses and the University of Public Service will take shape, the campus will be able to carry out increasingly complex tasks. Its community will become stronger, taking on a new place, increasingly able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by training officers to training in diplomacy. - pointed out Gergely Gulyás. The Minister called it the mission of the University to educate young people who are suitable and prepared to serve Hungary in all respects, on whom the modern and service-oriented Hungarian state will be able to rely. Balázs Fürjes, Secretary of State for the Development of Budapest and its Agglomeration at the Prime Minister's Office, spoke about Ludovika's seventy years since 1944, which was "a time of disintegration and demolition". The historic garden, established in the 18th century, was destroyed by 2010, the park was ruined and cluttered, said the Secretary of State, who recalled the "tidying up" that had begun seven years ago, making the Ludovika Campus one of the largest and most modern university campuses in Hungary. It became a new part of the city. The largest public park in Inner-Pest, the Orczy Garden has been renewed through the development, with which "Józsefváros has become a more beautiful, spacious, cleaner, greener, airier, tidier and safer place and offering many more sports and leisure opportunities." Balázs Fürjes spoke about his father, Sándor Fürjes, a young Lieutenant graduating from the Ludovika in 1944, a posthumous brigadier general, who had just been arrested by the Arrow Cross in the Ludovika building because of his anti-Nazi activities.
At the ceremony, Balázs Orbán, State Secretary for Parliamentary Affairs and Strategy at the Prime Minister's Office, made a toast. The Deputy Minister quoted the medieval King, Louis the Great of Hungary as saying that "we must be prepared for the challenges of the future, this can only be the key to success. Even if it requires less physical fights and more thinking from us in the future." According to Balázs Orbán, the views of the great king are more relevant in our time than ever before. "The world is changing at an unprecedented pace, and if we are unable to meet the intellectual challenges of understanding these processes, we cannot emerge victorious from this century. It is in this spirit that the Government of Hungary has established Ludovika – University of Public Service. Military science, knightly virtues should be brought under one roof with scientific understanding, university training and research, "explained Balázs Orbán, who said that the Wing Building, which had just been handed over, reflected all of this in a small way. The József Eötvös Research Centre will operate within the walls of this building, with the dedicated task of deepening strategic thinking, eg. participating in the creation of a future-proof Hungary.
The renovated building, with a useful floor area of approximately 9,000 square meters, houses 92 offices, 8 seminar rooms, three language laboratories, a computer room and two fencing rooms in keeping with the traditions of the Ludovika. In parallel with the handover of the Wing Building, during the summer, the University will leave the iconic Ménesi Campus, which has been home to the training of administrative officials for more than 40 years.