Reception of the Activities of Iparterv in the early Kádár Era

Text: Péter Haba

The overall professional and social reception of Hungarian architecture after 1956 was defined in a strange way by a special field which otherwise tends to fall outside the focus of attention of the wider public. The segment of designing industrial investments was ruled by complicated engineering structures and production technology systems, whilst the essentially less significant role of historical prototypes and precedents and traditions resulted in a frequent withdrawal of architecture from the mainstream of its definitive stylistic and intellectual trends, and thus induced „maverick” design attitudes and versatile methods of creation. The UIA (Union Internationale des Architectes) in 1961 awarded IPARTERV the Ex-aequo degree of Auguste Perret Prize for developing a new execution-technology method of in situ ferro-concrete prefab and its internationally outstanding activities in the field of structural design closely associated with the innovation.