Reformed Student College, Pápa

Architects: Tamás Máté, Áron Vass-Eysen
Text: Péter Debreczeni
Photos: Ákos Rajnai

Pápa is a nationally renowned school town thanks to the Reformed College of Pápa, which has become a major intellectual centre of the city and the Transdanubian region over its almost 500-year history.The College was forced to move several times during its foundation in 1531, but it has operated continuously in a smaller and larger context, except for the years of nationalisation. Today, the College has four independent institutions providing primary and higher education in separate buildings in the centre of Pápa. Its historicised buildings blend in well with the predominantly Catholic past of the late Baroque old town. This proud and glorious past is complemented by a contemporary building, the new student hostel of the College, next to the Gymnasium. The building itself is massed to match the site boundaries, continuing the side wing of the Gymnasium and enclosing its courtyard to the street. Its plan adapts to the acute angular corner of the site, its façade follows the street plan, continuing the street wing of the high school, its gable roof and its façade windows follow the proportions of the surrounding buildings. A full-height glass portal at ground floor level lightens the austere façade and provides views through the building to the courtyard. Community spaces and study rooms are located on the ground floor, with additional service and community functions in the basement. The building’s liberated yet puritan spirit and its sensitive adaptation to its neighbourhood is a very good example of how a modern building can find its place in a historicising environment, as if it had always been there.

General planning: BIVAK Studio
Leading architects: Tamás Máté, Áron Vass-Eysen
Fellow architect: Zsófia Berczi
Trainee: Inez Leduc
Interiors: János Máté, Tamás Máté, Áron Vass-Eysen – BIVAK
Interior fellow designers: Gabriella Bocz, András Sebestyén – ARTEM, ANGA
Landscape: Sándor Liziczai – Paragram Studio
Landscape fellow designer: Zsófia Eszenyi– Paragram Studio
Structure: Botond Madaras, Koppány Madaras – mdrs2
Structure fellow engineer: Péter Kincses– mdrs2
HVAC: Tamás Oltvai – Oltvai Studio
Electrical engineering: István Karácsony– AP-Lightworks
Framework, insulation: Ágoston Szenthe
Fire protection: László Miskolczi, Noémi Nacsa
Environment protection: András Varga
Elevator: Csaba Benke
Rehabilitation: Anna Kormányos
Roads: Zsolt Nyitrai
Client: Dunántúl Lutheran Church
Project coordinator: Petra Kamarás-Horváthy
Projekt manager: Ádám Benkó Dr, Tamás Weisz Dr
Technical supervisors: Attila Tenke, Attila Nagy, György Szattelberger – Korgell Ltd
Main contractor: Pesti Építő