Ildikó Takács talks to Anthony Gardner
The first time Ildikó Takács walked across the Victorian suspension bridge at Marlow in Buckinghamshire, she felt her heart begin to race. 'Marlow Bridge was built between 1829 and 1832 to a design by William Tierney Clark,' she explains. 'And then in 1849 Clark designed a chain bridge to link the two parts of Budapest across the Danube which was almost identical. The one in Marlow is smaller, but if you look at a photograph of it, you can actually mistake it for - which is why I think we should use it as a symbol of the friendship between Britain and Hungary.'
For the past year Ildikó has been building metaphorical bridges as head of the Hungarian Cultural Centre in Covent Garden. Her mission is to educate the British about a country which, thanks the intricacies of its language and its long confinement behind the Iron Curtain, remains something of a mystery to them, associated more readily with goulash and flamboyant peasant costumes than with the music of Béla Bartók and the films of Alexander Korda. Fortunately, she says, 'People here are very open-minded, and the cultural platform is really wide; and if we can succeed here, we will also reach other people, because from the European point of view London is the gateway to the world.'
Two things will certainly make the task easier. One is the groundwork laid by the Magyar Magic festival of 2003-2004; the other is Ildikó's personal glamour. Vivacious, intelligent and beautiful, she looks as if she should have been an influential society hostess at the height of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, tapping generals on their bemedalled chests with her fan before taking her seat at the opera. 
But as luck would have it she was born a hundred years too late, and has had to make do with two law degrees, a stint in the Hungarian Prime Minister's Office at the time of Hungary's Accession to the EU, and a job as an executive in a film-distribution company.
'In diplomacy they call culture "the third pillar",' she says, 'but in some ways it's become the first. I think it's an excellent way to promote a country. When I started here I was very pleased to meet people like the theatre director John Terry, who had no connection with Hungary but had fallen in love with it through its culture.'
There are many aspects of her country she would like to promote, but the first she mentions is music: 'We have a strong tradition, in which Sir Georg Solti - who for a long time was down the road from here at the Royal Opera House - is a very important icon.' Among the classical events she is working towards is a concert for student composers involving Britain, Ireland and Hungary; but jazz, too, has a strong following in her homeland, and she is looking at the possibility of some events with the Royal Academy of Music as an adjunct to the Cultural Centre's well-established Jazz Fridays.
Then there is contemporary dance (her own particular love, which will be the subject of a festival at the South Bank in the autumn, supported - she hopes - by EUNIC, the European Union National Institutes for Culture); not to mention film, photography and painting, all of which are regularly shown at the centre. Theatre is, she acknowledges, more problematical, because of the language barrier - 'But I'm pleased to see that places like the Royal Court, the Soho Theatre and the National Theatre seem to be open to international plays. There were some good tries in Magyar Magic, and I would like to do something at the Edinburgh Festival.'
Prominently displayed on the centre's website is a quotation from the late architect and furniture designer David Pye: 'Art is not a matter of giving people a little pleasure in their time off. It is, in the long run, a matter of holding together a civilisation.' Ildikó believes this to be particularly true of her own country, which thanks to its history and geographical position has suffered a considerable diaspora: 'There are two or three million Hungarians living as minorities in nearby countries, and many others in more distant parts of the world, and what really connects us is our art and science - although as they say, you can have two Hungarians and three different opinions.'
So has culture played an important part in healing the wounds of the Communist era? 'Yes, definitely. And it's also very interesting to look back and see what Communism gave to us - the creative ways that people found of expressing their opinions despite it, in theatre, in literature, in film.' This is to be the subject of a conference on censorship being held in April at University College London and the Barbican: organised by the Hungarian Cultural Centre and its Polish and Czech equivalents, its highlight will be a discussion by the film directors Andrzej Wajda, Jirzi Menzel and Istvan Szabo at the Barbican on the 25th.
Since the collapse of the Iron Curtain, accession to the EU - a subject of particular interest to Ildikó, and her chief area of responsibility when working in the Prime Minister's office - has brought about further enormous changes for Hungary. 'It opened up a lot of possibilities. It gave more opportunities to students and artists to travel, so those of my generation had much more contact with other cultures than my parents' generation did, and removed many other barriers. Of course, it also showed that we really have to compete with other cultures, but there's nothing wrong with that.'
This year Ildikó will have her eye very much on Liverpool, to see what the Hungarian city of Pécs can learn from the European Capital of Culture before it shares the title with Essen and Istanbul in 2010. 'I think they will make a very good triumvirate, because Pécs has a very strong German heritage and a very strong Turkish heritage. It's a city which is very much a crossroads: it can act as a gateway to the Balkans, and also to the East; and I think the fact that its different ethnic cultures can live happily together make it a good symbol not only for Hungary but for the rest of Europe, and the wider world.'
What, finally, does she perceive to be the main cultural differences and similarities between Britain and Hungary? 'We have very different senses of humour. You can always tell when a Hungarian is telling a joke, because of his expression; but British people can keep a complete poker face, so if you don't understand the language, you don't know when to laugh. Hungarians show their feelings much more: but if you get closer to the British, you realise that we both love beauty and art in the same way.'
© Anthony Gardner. All views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to the European Commission.