In Search of Regional Strategies: the Architecture of the 1930s and 1960s

Text: Domonkos Wettstein

Iván Kotsis’s week-end house in Boglár (archív)

The committed and pragmatic approach of architects pressed by conditions is a leitmotif in the architectural history of the shores of Lake Balaton that also permeated the experimental forms of waterfront buildings as a rule. This study surveys who and how reflected about the architectural tasks of the Balaton region as well as about the regional strategies and how the concept of the profession of its own role changed depending on social challenges. With the spread of recreation the transformation of the lake-shore became more and more spectacular, its exceptional landscape position is defined by the changes of scales owing to urbanisation, blurring borders and the amalgamation of regional identities, which in turn has made and still makes architects committed to the cause of the Balaton face more and more challenges.