The Roman Catholic Church in Újpalota

Architect: Gábor Kruppa
Text: Zorán Vukoszlávlyev
Photos: Tamás Bujnovszky

The townscape of the outer districts of the capital is predominantly defined by the generous tracery of their typical developments, the housing estates composed with the scales and proportions of a desired city. The improvements envisioned were cancelled or were realized as incomplete ones resulting in distortions: this is why the edge of the development functions as a visible borderline in between the „original” and the „inserted” structures. Situations in which public institutions built amongst fillet houses quash the perceptible depressing impact of multi-storey blocks with their change of scales have lucky potentials. (…)
The church in Kruppa’s interpretation evokes the transformation of the sacridness of 20th-century Catholicism taking place for a century – with direct references and spiritual-intellectual quotations. Such an example is the composition of the liturgical space of the interior of the church: the reference to the retableau-altar on the eastern end-wall (today still with the lack of the altarpiece), the tabernacle-like design of the Eucharist kept on the axis on this „altar for celebrating a mass with the back”, the altar table interpreted like a mobilia in the middle of the sanctum elevated with stairs, the baptismal font located at the western entrance. (…)
It is not (merely) the historical respect of traditions, but also the evocation of the liturgical and spiritual movement of renewal launched in the mid-20th century at the dawn of the new millennium. It comes easy to relate the design of the tower to Árkay’s church in Városmajor. And, like a summary, it is easy to declare that the utilization of brick is a trademark of contemporary „post-organic” church-builders. (excerpts, see the complete text of the study in Post Scriptum)

Client: Esztergom-Budapest Főegyházmegye
Architecture, interior design: Kima Studio
Management: Tamás Németh
Architect: Gábor Kruppa
Fellow architects: Piroska Rónai, Gergely Draskóczy, Tamás Merkel
Structure: Péter Donáczi, Pond Kft.
Installation: Ervin Bajor
Electrical engineering: József Krén, Emese Osztrovszki – Elekt Royal Kft.
Landscape: László Andaházy, Katalin Turcsányi , Panda Pont Kft.
Wrought iron: János Lehoczky