City in the City

OTP Headquarters, Budapest Architects: László Földes, János Mónus, László Tóth Text: Anett Mizsei Photos: Bálint Jaksa The 21st century has already brought many unexpected changes to human life. Flexibility has become one of the key factors for the success of individuals and communities of various sizes. Designed by László Földes, János Mónus and László Tóth, […]

Subtle Elegance

Grand’Or Apartment Building, Nagydiófa Street, Budapest Architects: LAB5 architects Text: Péter Debreczeni Photos: Zsolt Batár, Attila Gulyás The downtown area of Pest, and the seventh district where the building in question stands, is one of the most complex parts of the city, both in terms of history and urban planning. Every plot of land has […]

Fruits of the Soul

Ráday House, Budapest Architect: Zoltán Berzsák Text: Zoltán Dragon Photos: József Hajdú This year saw the inauguration of the Ráday House, which may be referred to as a Calvinist centre including the Ráday Students’ Hostel, the Faculty of Theology of Károli Gáspár University of the Hungarian Reformed Church, the Library and Bible Museum of the […]

Faith and Memory

Babyn Yar Synagogue, Kyiv Architect: Manuel Herz Text: György Szegő Photos: Iwan Baan On 29-30th September, 1941, the Nazis herded the Jewish citizens of the city and its surroundings into a valley near Kyiv, where a detachment of SS soldiers slaughtered 34,000 people with a volley of bullets. As the city grew, a hotel complex […]

Biological Research and Education Center, Lipót

MÉSZ-MÉK Diploma Award 2022 Concept and text: Sára Borbála Bodó , BME Explirative Architecture Department Consultant: Gábor Fábián The location of the diploma project is Lipót, a small village of 716 people in Szigetköz. The planned building is located directly on the shore of the crescent-shaped lake, thus forming a kind of boundary between the […]

The Role on Online Communication within the Social Processing of the Heritage of the Late Modern

Text: Károly Zubek In the recent period, our late modern architectural heritage has repeatedly become one of the main topics of architectural discourse, although mostly this happened in connection with the endangerment or demolition of houses. Just to mention a few examples, the public opinion interested in architecture was stirred up in connection with the […]

Adaptive Traditions

Contemporary regional architecture in Szeklerland Text: Enikő Sarolta Rab At present, regional architecture in Szeklerland (the Land of the Székely minority) is about adaptation to the local natural and built environment and relative proportionality with the fabric of the village, revealing strong ties to the centuries-old tradition of timber architecture. In the 21st century, there […]

Old Testament, New Architecture

Judaic-Jewish roots of modernism, 1848–2000 Text and Photos: Rudolf Klein This paper discusses the impact of the aniconic Biblical tradition on modern architecture; modernism’s departure from the traditional Greco-Christian cultural paradigm, i. e. abolishing the buildings’ representation of tectonics (columns, capitals, architraves, etc.); cancelling the basics of Aristotle’s aesthetics and banning figurative decoration on surfaces. […]

The Potentials of 3P and 4P in Hungarian Housing Development

Text: Julianna Szabó PhD In 2018, a comprehensive professional consortium managed by the Municipality of Zugló won funding from Urban Innovative Actions. The project titled “More than Housing” was targeted to build a social tenement house that, in addition to affordability, promised an exceptionally sustainable ethos and technical solutions in Hungary, and, as a social […]

Architecture in War

The situation of built heritage in Ukraine Text: Eszter Götz How should a country protect its architectural heritage during wartime? From Palmyra to Timbuktu, the question has been raised tragically many times – and it arises again in connection with the war in Ukraine. In June 2022, the Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA) and […]

The Attraction of the Earth

Adobe as an old-new building material Text: Bálint Botzheim Photos: Ökodome Projekt The use of adobe, as one of the oldest building materials, has declined significantly in the past decades. Due to its special properties, however, in recent years it has been receiving more and more attention in the construction industry. In folk architecture, it […]