Zalotay 80

Zalotay’s very first exhibition in Budapest was hosted by N&n Gallery in 2005. The material exhibited then is completed here: during the preparation of the exhibition a large number of documents, drawings and writings came up from the family legacy, archives and the master’s study unknown to us so far. This material is now being collected…

Architecture without Buildings

I would start out with a story: in Egypt, where uncle Elemér with black suntan is hanging around in the shadow of a pyramid. To protect against the burning heat he had put on some piece of clothes and also a sort of frothy shirt. He exactly looked like the natives of the site, there is no doubt. As he is just hanging around there…

About Zalotay’s Ribbon House in London

The Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA) organized a large-scale conference titled Architecture and the Paradox of Dissidence. This ivent focusses ont he correlations of the critical approaches and practical methods created against the political and investment tendencies defining contemporary architecture and similar phenomena…

Antecedents

I would like to especially focus on a unique feature of Zalotay’s architecture. Possessing an extraordinary clarity, sense of purpose and toughness when phrasing the theory of his concept or projects its macrostructure, the inner correlations, Zalotay still creates the details of forms with a high degree of inner intuitiveness and expressivity.

Modern Architecture and Astrology

Zalotay’s architecture represents a special type and quality: he is able to draw attention to the cosmic meaning of architecture even without the mythical features of his struggle. According to ancient astrologers, architecture as a profession is governed by Saturn just like all those in close association with the material, the earth…

Stroking a House

In 2002 a French broadcasting company shot a film about buildings of certain European countries selected by themselves. Switzerland would have been represented by the house designed by Elemér Zalotay, but the Swiss were so much astonished at this choice that they managed to talk the team out of shooting, which in turn reignited…

Object Found between Earth and Sky

Meeting the local observatory for earth satellites in Szombathely moved me so deeply that I looked up its designs in the archives of Vasiterv. I came upon the architectural documentations of this building that are also displayed here on the walls, including those of statics and the craziest fittings, which I used for an exhibition in Felsőszolnok…

Zalotay Legends

Relying upon Le Corbusier and the arche-socialist Charles Fourier, Zalotay’s argument was so crystallized, clear and simple that it could not be reacted to anyway. Not even if it had occurred to someone that Jules Verne who had been so much sensitive to fantasies showed a kind of elementary revulsion of the utopias of cities…

Zalotay 80 – Close and Far Paralels

Elemér Zalotay was born on 30th of October, 1932 in Szentes. He graduated from the Budapest Technical University in 1957. In 1962 he presented his concept of the ribbon house in the periodical titled Interbuild in the article Corb plus. Inspired by Le Courbisier’s idea of the „integrated dwelling units”, this design went beyond…

A Letter to Elemér Zalotay

You had already been a famous individual – should I not say, infamous back in those days – behind your back because of the Russian manufactories of prefab houses, with your idea of the ribbon houses which had been sawn off owing to political reasons. András Kovács also recorded on celluloid tape among „tough guys”, that was regarded…

Necessity as a Program of Architecture

Necessity as a designing programme describes the history of architecture in the modern age as a shadow. The shape and direction of this shadow kept changing with the historical periods, defining those who are needy, according to the recognized or supposed needs and the jurisdiction presently attributed to architecture…

The Venice Architecture Biennale – in Hungary

The Hungarian exhibitions of the Venice Biennale are usually also shown to the Hungarian public after its closure. Previously they were housed by the University of Pécs, now by the Budapest-based FUGA Architectural Centre. According to the curators of the Hungarian exhibition, Bálint Bachmann and Balázs Markó the presence of standard…