{"id":7118,"date":"2013-01-28T04:30:53","date_gmt":"2013-01-28T03:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/meonline.hu\/?p=7118"},"modified":"2013-03-11T23:57:12","modified_gmt":"2013-03-11T22:57:12","slug":"az-atya-a-fiuk-es-a-szentlelek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meonline.hu\/en\/archivum\/az-atya-a-fiuk-es-a-szentlelek\/","title":{"rendered":"The Father, the Sons and the Holy Spirit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ferenc Bessenyei Culture Centre, H\u00f3dmez\u0151v\u00e1s\u00e1rhely<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Architects: Istv\u00e1n Jan\u00e1ky Sr. (1948), Istv\u00e1n Jan\u00e1ky Jr., Gy\u00f6rgy Jan\u00e1ky, Gizella Jan\u00e1kyn\u00e9 F\u00fcredi<\/strong>
\nText: Csaba Masznyik<\/strong>
\nPhotos: Csaba Masznyik and the Ferenc Bessenyei Culture Centre<\/strong><\/p>\n

Istv\u00e1n Jan\u00e1ky became unwell on August 6th, 2012, the hottest days of this summer in H\u00f3dmez\u0151v\u00e1s\u00e1rhely whilst managing the construction of the almost completed Culture Centre named after Ferenc Bessenyei (previously the poet S\u00e1ndor Pet\u0151fi). Although he was rushed to hospital immediately, his life could not be saved. After P\u00e9ter Reimholz and Imre Makovecz the third most significant Hungarian architect of the last quarter of the 20th century passed away. <\/p>\n

Born in H\u00f3dmez\u0151v\u00e1s\u00e1rhely, architect Istv\u00e1n Jan\u00e1ky Sr. (1901\u20131966) was commissioned to design the Pet\u0151fi Culture Centre and People\u2019s College in H\u00f3dmez\u0151v\u00e1s\u00e1rhely in 1948 when he still practised as a private designer. Back in those days his career already rested upon his prestigious designs of Palatinus Open-Air Baths (1937), several urban tenement houses, buildings of the fire station and the Headquarters of the Royal Hungarian Industrial Materials\u2019 Office (1942). After the nationalization of the practices of engineers and designer-architects in 1948 the licensed designs were made at the National Institute of Architectonics and Design in August, 1948. The assistant who helped Jan\u00e1ky in this project was Gy\u00f6rgy J\u00e1nossy (1923\u20131998), a young architect returning from Denmark in 1947. The elaboration of the marvellous drawn version of the design is probably his work, and presumably, but not confirmably some of the details are also his ideas.
\nNear the main square of H\u00f3dmez\u0151v\u00e1s\u00e1rhely there is the late-Baroque style church of the Greco-Serbian orthodox community built in 1792. In line with the 1781 decree of tolerance by Joseph II it is receded from the streetline turning its back on it. Originally, it had no tower. This is the beginning of the unique history of the block that had been a closed development, which was to be continued by the construction of the People\u2019s College and Culture Centre designed to replace the old school of the Uniate church in 1948. However, the new political authority erased the school wing from the programme. On the site of the would-be people\u2019s college a dwelling house as a development in unbroken rows was built later on, in the 1960s. Just like the church, this modern structure housing the theatre hall with a gallery was also receded from the streetline: with this gesture a square was created outside the main entrance and also the mass of the orthodox church was freed to some extent.
\nIn 2007 when it came to the reconstruction and extension of the museum standing across the street the museum, the idea of modernizing the Pet\u0151fi Culture Centre also occurred. The architects from Szeged who were commissioned to extend the Tornyai Museum and reconstruct the church made the elegant gesture and recommended the sons of Istv\u00e1n Jan\u00e1ky Sr. \u2013 also well-famed architects by then \u2013 as the designers of the reconstruction of the Culture Centre. This is how Istv\u00e1n Jan\u00e1ky (1938\u20132012) and Gy\u00f6rgy Jan\u00e1ky (1941) were contracted in 2007 to modernize the structure designed by their father some sixty years before, and also to have it extended a year later. Erected in the 60s and 80s, the casual but stylish raw brick extensions of the rear wing of the structure housing service functions are authentic examples of the \u201espontaneous architecture\u201d that were retained by the designers with minor corrections and treated as integral parts of the original building. Also having rooms for study circles that meet today\u2019s requirements, the culture house has been extended by spaces that were created by an additional intervention: partly making a cellar beneath the existing structure. Although it was not an easy solution from a technical viewpoint which also proved to be rather expensive, it turned out to be an advantageous one, and not only from the aspects of utilization. Built later, the brick masonry extension \u2013 not a work of architecture, yet not contradicting the character of the structure \u2013 is now further extended by a new part also made of brick: it is organized half beneath the level of the terrain around the inner atrium creating a picturesque play of the building mass on the side facing the cortile whilst leaving the main views of the building completely unchanged.
\nHowever, the inner spatial system of the theatre hall had to be remodelled in order to have an appropriate view of the stage and fine acoustics. The first-floor gallery was erased, the auditorium that had been slightly inclined is not accessible now from the ground-floor but from the first-floor gallery. This involved a reduction of the number of seats, but in turn the auditorium is now much more suited for its purposes. The standards and potentials of stage, lighting and air-technology equipment many times exceed those of the conditions preceding the reconstruction. The design and view of the inner space (the lattice suspended ceiling, the ceiling lighting, wall mount brackets, the breakline where the wall and the ceiling meet which was necessary to have the best of acoustics) meant quite a challenge for the designers and the interior designer. Preserving the materials and the palette of the original character of the building was as important a priority as the refreshing and modernizing of the atmosphere of the interiors. However, there was not enough money left for the latter: the radical reduction of costs during the construction phase affected the solutions of interior design, engineering and lighting.
\nFurther functions that cannot be housed in the existing structure eventually required the building of a dance and rehearsal room, a hall for computer terminals and classrooms for the music school. They are now found in a new building erected opposite the entrance to the church facing the interior of the block, on the site of the parsonage once belonging to the orthodox church. Having a square floorplan, brick facework and undulating slate roofing just like the neighbouring structures, one of the two-storey buildings inclined on a corner point (facing the Culture Centre) is accessible via outer ramps leading to its levels independent of each other. Walking on the ramp the interior of the block created in the early 50s slowly reveals itself: on the one side it is bordered by two residential buildings by J\u00f3zsef Schall erected simultaneously with the Culture Centre from the same brick made in V\u00e1s\u00e1rhely and on the other by a row of classicizing dwelling houses built a few years later during the era of the dictatorship of styles, which are well-proportioned otherwise. The third side of the site is still vacant. At the top of the ramp, on entering the ballroom on the upper floor one can look out of the two large-sized windows facing the entrance to have a view of the lateral elevation of the Culture Centre, which obviously cannot be by chance.
\nThe late-Baroque orthodox church that created a contradictory situation due to reasons of religious politics, the Culture House adjusting to it also with its type of development and the new ballroom counteracted the ambiguity prevailing two centuries: the three buildings make an alliance, they are interpretable together, whilst the spaces in-between them have also been reinterpreted. Designers meant to emphasize this relatedness by having a dense 1 meter thick hedge-wall as tall as a human being which is pierced at many points: it embraces the trinity of the father, the sons and the church. The hedge as a motif reoccurs in every graphic work by Istv\u00e1n Jan\u00e1ky from the very beginning, making an integral part of the architectural design. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t