An On-Site Board Meeting of MÉSZ

The new board of the Association of Hungarian Architects (MÉSZ) started its work a year ago. In autumn 2012 it launched a process to intensify its connections with local representatives of the profession by organizing on-site board meetings. Those held in Miskolc, Pécs and at the Budapest-based Technical University were now followed…

Zalaváry Aged 90

The stages of the long professional career of Lajos Zalaváry is marked by buildings that have turned out to be emblematic as a rule. The specialist architectural press, however, tends to praise the hygiene baths designed by him and built between 1960 and 1963 in Jászberény. It is not by accident: the building is still a striking one…

Mondrian Overlooking a Hill

After the old Felhévíz, Ürömi Street receives passers-by with a striking view from a street on the hillside. The memory of dwellers of this neighbourhood cultivating vineyards in the past are preserved here and there, amongst the rows of single- or two-storey family homes, making an overall impression like that of a constructivist painting in vivid colours.

Spatial Play with Forms and Function in the Forest

In a district of Pécs with a spectacular atmosphere, at the end of Miléva Street turning off the road to the Misina, there is just one site in the forest. Erected amongst the trees, this complex has been awarded several architectural prizes in 2012 and if it allowed itself to be more exposed, it would probably be referred to as one of the sights…

Alternative Architectures

The designs made by nine young architects from Borsod are basically grouped around two characteristic nodes. One of them being a potential middle-class development with prototypes chosen according to proportions, scales and functions instead of actual samples and historic forms – of course relying upon contemporary technology, structures…

Environment-conscious Home

It is not easy to create anything of high standards in the genre of detached family houses. Many people explain it away with a lack of money that in Hungary there are lots of low-standard ones, but sometimes it turns out that excellent houses can be built with inventive, economical, disciplined approach and a lot of work, even with a modest budget.

The Adventure of the Film Palace in Kaposvár

By the time Lamping József started to design the film palace in Kaposvár, he had obviously had studied bountiful of European and Hungarian examples. Thanks to this as well as his talents, he created one of the most representative public buildings in the country in a mature Art Deco style. This house mastered everything, both inside and outside…

Children’s Town in the Cornfield

As a result of the multitude of children and rising standards of expectations, Szigetszentmiklós has grown out of its existing cultural and community institutions and facilities. When the local government published a new tender for a would-be education and sports complex, they did not mean to insert it into the fabric of the town at the cost…

Tympanum and Foundry

Specialized in turning and metal polishing, the Mika family immigrated here from Moravia and had their workshop on the edge of the Jewish quarter of Pest at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1909 Tivadar Mika had a house built there in the style of Parisian Art Nouveau commissioning architect Jenő Marton to design a three-storey residential…

Eastern Promises

Eastern Promises conveys a representative cross-section of architectural developments in this region, ranging from the stars of Japanese architecture and the Chinese bureaus, which are slowly but surely shifting into the spotlight since the late 1990s, to young, up-and-coming architects, whose work is being presented in this way for…

The Main Railway Station of Central Europe

The large-scale development project of the Hauptbahnhof Wien is a spectacular example of European trends. The function of the former main railway stations is taken over by the transitory ones, as it is required by contemporary accelerated lifestyle and the modernization of the railway networks accordingly in its wake.

Metaphorical Curtain

Opened in April, 2013 the new Opera House of Linz in Upper Austria is not only outstanding and excellent in its urban context because of its function, but also of its orientation, location and architectural qualities. After dropping numerous ideas and venues, in 2004 the site next to Volksgarten was chosen for construction.