Barbakán 3, Pécs

Architect: Ferenc Keller 
Text: Zoltán Bencze 
Photos: Tamás Bujnovszky 

The new structure of Barbakán Porta contains ten apartments and several offices. As the last stage of a development started a long time ago it was meant to complete the old-and-new residential block which was built on the north-western corner of the medieval city walls of Pécs. This new block consisting of three new structures creates a spatial wall running opposite the western line of the old city wall. The three residential buildings of the Barbakán Porta were constructed comfortably and slowly. The structures are looking for harmony whilst shaping and modifying each other step by step. What they have in common is that they approach modern architecture with some reservation and criticism, whereas their design motivations are different. Another feature they share is that their designers found their spiritual-intellectual prototypes based on international trends, but their formal patterns and models were found in the historic context of the local man-made environment. Closing the block, the building completed most recently is a white house-like structure complemented by favourite means of contemporary architecture in the forms of untreated raw ferro-concrete stair sheets, colourful entrance doors and fire-cast steel rails. They are seemingly simple and even puritan tools matched with referential proportions and treatment of forms. The result is a building bursting with emotions, which is linked to the past of the city via a firm touch of belongingness.

Leading architect: Ferenc Keller ­– Építész Stúdió
Fellow architect: Andrea Várkonyi ­– Építész Stúdió
Structure: Marcell Duga
HVAC: András Oltvai, Tamás Oltvai 
Electrical engineering: Róbert Garamvölgyi 
Client: Ferenc Csizmadia – Porta Barbakán Kft.