The Reconstruction Project of the New Home to Ferenczy Museum Szentendre

Architects: Imre Szuromi, Barnabás Kocsis
Text: Miklós Sulyok
Photos: Zsitva Tibor

Pajor Mansion housing Ferenczy Museum in Szentendre embodies history in itself. Built in the first half of the 19th century by Gáspár Pajor medical doctor and county judge it came to function as a residential building, a Calvinist girls’ boarding school, police barracks, workers’ militia, then land registration office, municipal police station and art school before its present utilisation. The building survived till the 21st century in badly deteriorated condition: by the time designing its present-day function started, it had already stood abandoned for some fifteen or so years. Its reconstruction required large-scale intervention: the whole roofing had to be replaced by a new one, including the ceilings, the foundations of some wings had to be reinforced, the brick-pillar porch of the entrance demolished and rebuilt. However, it was not only a salvage project of a protected historical building: it also had to be resurrected as the most important secular structure of the town as well as the worthwile utilisation and remodelling of the main tourist route. As of today the whole length of Kossuth Street – from the local train terminal to the Main Square – appears as an architecturally well-kempt, whilst the new museum building is a new representative contribution to the rows of buildings approaching the banks of Bükkös Stream after it had existed as a dead-alive building.

Architecture: Szuromi Építész Iroda
Architects: Imre Szuromi, Barnabás Kocsis, Gáspár Kocsis, Attila Kutasi
HVAC: István Dobay
Electrical engineering, fire alarm: Anita Bálint
Garden design: Alexandra Zeitler
Elevator: Zsolt Makovsky
Structure: Péter Donáczi
Monument preservation expert: Péter Klaniczay