Kéri-Pharma Office Building, Debrecen

Architect: Péter Kovács
Text: Eszter Götz
Photos: Tamás Bujnovszky

In the new headquarters of Kéri Pharma pharmaceutical distribution company in Debrecen, the company’s image, individual expectations and the well-being of the staff community were treated as equally important aspects.
The site is located between the main traffic axis of the district and a quiet, detached residential area, accessible from both sides. The development of the main road has changed a lot in recent times, and is lined with offices, workshops and detached houses; it was clear that the ‘face’ of the company needed to be defined on this site with a characteristic feature. A gateway structure was added to the main road: an asymmetrical wall with a triangular roof, protected by a concrete plaster roof, with the company name and logo on it. The building itself stands much further inward, away from the noise of the street, more in keeping with the garden zone. The snow-white walls, the ceiling-to-floor glass walls opening into the garden, the wide parapet running along the floor and the three box vollumes that protrude prominently from the top floor all come to create a tight, compact structure. With his umpteenth building, architect Péter Kovács presents a world of forms in which rigorous geometry creates an architecture permeated by a poetic character, intellectual contents and emotions, proving that the basic principles of classical Modernism, rewritten in a contemporary way, can give us valid answers to the increasingly pressing and urging dilemmas of the present.

Architect: Péter Kovács DLA
Assistant architects: Ferenc Banu, Ádám Barta, Mariann Varga
Interior design: György Frank, Péter Kovács DLA
Structure: Balázs Higi
Framework: Attila Kocsis, Zsigmond Dezső
HVAC: Béla Bodó
Electrical engineering: Zoltán Czégé
Landscape architect: Tamás Sándor