A Volume and an Exhibition – HAP Gallery, February 23–April 2, 2010

House of Doctors, Budapest IX., 1929

Compared to its significance, the monumental oeuvre of Iván Kotsis is less widely known. The wider public – that is non-professionals with some architectural erudition – have probably heard of only one of his projects which does not even exist any more. It is the Regnum Marianum Church once standing on the confines of Városliget (City Park) which was demolished by the dictatorial regime even in the lifetime of the architect so that it would not interfere with the new route for demonstrations designed after the Red Square in Moscow or disturb the sculpture of Stalin also standing there. The generation of middle-aged architects today does not know enough about Iván Kotsis either, not to speak of those who are even younger. His personal students and followers speak of him with great respect even now but they are already in their 80s as the youngest of them were about 20 years old in 1949 when the excellent professor was dismissed from the Technical University. The volume by Iván Kotsis will never grow out of date either: this is why it should be there in the libraries of architects and art-loving intellectuals.