Imr Makovecz Imre

GUIDE TO HUNGARIAN

ORGANIC ARCHITECTURE

© Estate of Imre Makovecz et al.

© Ervin Nagy, architect | Foreword

© Gábor Máté, György Dénes, László Sáros et al. | Photographs

© Huw Dangerfield | English translation

© EPL | BUD | HU | EU | www.serdian.org

Editor: Miklós György Serdián

Hungarian edition: Makovecz – Organikus építészeti útikönyv, 2011

Editors: Eszter Dénes and György Dénes

Book-design (print version): Zsolt Ligetfalvi

Electronic version made by eKönyv Magyarország Kft.

www.ekonyv.hu

ISBN 978 615 5461 12 5

2015 | 17 | e-book | ePub

This book was published to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Imre Makovecz's birth.

CONTENTS

Foreword

1. Visegrád and other settlements in the Pilis hills

Forest culture centre, Visegrád

Campsite, Visegrád

Hostelry, Visegrád

Mócsai Farm, Visegrád

Sports hall, Visegrád

Ski-slope building, Dobogókő

Roman Catholic chapel, Pilisszántó

Stephaneum (PPCU), Piliscsaba

Marillac Szent Lujza Hall of Residence (PPCU), Piliscsaba

Other works by Makovecz’s apprentices and fellow architects

2. The Buda, the Vértes, and the Gerecse hill ranges

Waldorf kindergarten, Solymár

Tündérkert Kindergarten, Zsámbék

Puskás Ferenc Football Academy, Halls of Residence building, Felcsút

Puskás Ferenc Football Academy, Management building, Felcsút

Primary school, Neszmély

Other works by Makovecz’s apprentices and fellow architects

3. The Danube south of Budapest; Pécs and surrounding area

Szent István Roman Catholic Church, Százhalombatta

Jankovich Miklós Primary School, Rácalmás

Szentlélek Roman Catholic Church, Paks

Village Hall, Kakasd

Residential buildings, Pécs

Római udvar, Pécs

Vigadó, Szigetvár

Other works by Makovecz’s apprentices and fellow architects

4. Lake Balaton region and western Hungary

Evangelical church, Siófok

Library pavilion, Letenye

Csokonai Community Centre, Csurgó

Theatre and concert hall, Lendva

Village hall, Bak

Szent István Király Roman Catholic Church, Pethőhenye

Village hall, Zalaszentlászló

Family houses, Devecser

Szent Donát Winery, Csopak

Other works by Makovecz’s apprentices and fellow architects

5. Northeastern and Eastern Hungary

Cultural centre, Sárospatak

Apartment building, Sárospatak

Árpád Vezér Grammar School, Sárospatak

Bodrog Department Store, Sárospatak

Patricius Winery, Bodrogkisfalud

Primary school and sports hall, Szerencs

Greek Catholic Church, Csenger

Seventh Day Adventist chapel, Csenger

School and educational centre, Csenger

Health centre, Csenger

Regional health centre, Polgár

Other works by Makovecz’s apprentices and fellow architects

6. Northern Hungary and the Jász region

Cultural centre, Jászapáti

Cultural centre, Jászkisér

Public library, Jászberény

Bitskey Aladár Swimming Pool, Eger

Nursery school, Aszód

Mézesvölgy Primary School, Veresegyház

Other works by Makovecz’s apprentices and fellow architects

7. Southeastern Hungary

Hagymaház, Makó

Bus station, Makó

Thermal and medicinal baths and spa centre, Makó

Holiday house, Martély

Other works by Makovecz’s apprentices and fellow architects

8. Budapest

Chapel of rest, district XII, Budapest

Hattyúház, district I, Budapest

Makona office building, district III, Budapest

Óbuda Waldorf School – new wing, district III, Budapest

Office building, district VIII, Budapest

Condominium, district VI, Budapest

Other works by Makovecz’s apprentices and fellow architects

9. Transylvania, Romania

Reformed Church To The Wonders Of God, Kolozsvár

Millenium Roman Catholic Church, Csíkszereda

Three-Mound Altar, Csíksomlyó

Reformed church, Vargyas

Reformed chapel of rest, Sepsziszentgyörgy

Other works by Makovecz’s apprentices and fellow architects

Notes

Glossary of place names outside Hungary’s borders

Imre Makovecz’s significant works

Imre Makovecz’s CV

Foreword

The full extent of Imre Makovecz’s significance will be evaluated by generations to come. In this book, we highlight those values in his life’s work, with which he contributed to the building of Hungarian society.

It would be difficult to find another architect, who, with his work and contribution to public life, has so deeply transformed and so successfully improved the quality of life of those who use his buildings. All those who come into contact with his buildings feel uplifted, and imbued with a sense of pride and dignity.

At the forefront of his mind in all his work was the drama of building, meaning the effect which the design, construction, and use of a building has on the community in which it stands. For Makovecz this was far more important than any stylistic or artistic question.

His buildings were tools of healing, with which to bring remedy to damaged village structures, spoiled landscapes, manipulated and oppressed communities, lives distraught by catastrophe. For them to deliver that remedial effect, Makovecz’s buildings had to be not only functional in the very simplest sense, but also works of art, fitting integrally into the lives of their communities.

The social effect of Makovecz’s activity reached all corners of the country, and into areas beyond the country’s borders. With his organizing and planning work in Transylvania and in Slovakia, he helped and strengthened the minority Hungarian communities in those places, just as he had strengthened communities in Hungary during the decade before the 1989-1990 transition from dictatorship to democracy. During that decade, with his leadership of a movement which aimed to create new village halls to provide venues for community events, he initiated community development work intended to promote the survival of villages and small settlements.

From the very beginning Makovecz’s architectural work meant opposition to the prevailing cultural policies, and by continually testing the limits of artistic freedom permitted by the authorities, throughout the 1960s, 70s and 80s he opened up new avenues for the whole of the architectural profession.

Something of a rarity in Hungarian culture, Makovecz was the successful founder of a school of thought around his ideas, and devoted much of his extraordinary energy to shaping the outlook of younger generations. Today, the followers of his architectural style and way of thinking make a unique contribution to the formation of the country’s architectural profile.

It was on Makovecz’s initiative that Hungary’s system of Chief Architects came in to being. These architects, who took on the role of stewards in the shaping of villages and towns—usually in the face of very limiting circumstances — have for many years been waging a successful struggle for better quality development of the built environment, something equally as worthy of international note as Imre Makovecz’s own creations.

Also unique was Makovecz’s role in the building of new houses for people whose homes had been destroyed by events beyond their control. This building work took place in 2001 and 2010 in a number of villages in eastern Hungary hit badly by river floods, and again in 2010 in villages in western Hungary near the town of Ajka, north of Lake Balaton, devastated by the escape of toxic sludge from a bauxite-processing plant. The work was carried out with Makovecz’s spiritual leadership, and encompassed many tasks outside the usual scope of an architect’s activity, such as discussions with those who had lost their houses, analysis of the region’s traditional architecture, managing the execution of works, solving logistical challenges, devising systems of administration for the emergency situations. All these things were given just as much weight as the design of the new houses. The various projects were successfully completed and widely acclaimed.

Makovecz’s exceptional organizational abilities also left their mark on Hungary’s first major international appearance in the post-communist era; its participation in the 1992 world exhibition in Seville. Makovecz himself oversaw the construction of Hungary’s national pavilion, and with it earned recognition not only for Hungarian architecture, but also for the skill of Hungarian builders.

With his itinerant schools, his efforts to establish the Chamber of Hungarian Architects, his setting-up of the Kós Károly Association, and his work with that association over more than twenty years, Makovecz demonstrated the possibilities for the architectural profession to organize itself, and showed how to use those possibilities effectively.

We would do well to espouse Makovecz’s values, and they stand in dignity before us. Let us hope that his disciples will have the strength to continue his life’s work.

Ervin Nagy

Chief Architect of Hungary

Forest culture centre

Visegrád, Mogyoró-hegy │ 1984–1988

Architect: Imre Makovecz

Interior architect: Gábor Mezei

This culture centre is run by the local state forestry company in order that visitors to the area, well-loved by ramblers, might come into contact with nature in a more conscious way than they might if they just stroll through the countryside. The centre provides a base for many woodland educational programmes. With two domed rooves overlapping each other, and surrounded by grass-covered earth, the building is essentially a mound house, just peeping out above ground. The dome over the central space stands on decorated columns, and is covered with pieces of copper sheeting arranged in a pattern reminiscent of the scales of a fish. Benjamin Makovecz painted the signs of the Zodiac which have been fixed to the lower part of the longtitudinal beams of the roof structure. In the middle of the dome is a skylight, which also acts as a sundial when weather conditions permit. At the time of the Spring Equinox the main entrance looks towards the rising sun. The building’s interior is divided into the central space and an outer ring, in which the various activity rooms are located. The upper sections of the two vertical wooden beams holding the entrance gates are carved in the shape of eagles. The carving is the work of the sculptor László Péterfy.

Mogyoró-hegy campsite

Visegrád, Mogyoró-hegy │ 1977–1981

Architect: Imre Makovecz

Co-architect: Erzsébet Várlaki

The buildings on this site, located at the foot of a much larger hill called the Nagyvillám, were commissioned by the local state forestry company. There is a reception building and an adjacent tied house, both built with a structure of curved glued laminated timber. On a hexagonal footprint, inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright, stands a skeletal structure in gothic style, supported at the centre by a column. Analytically, the body of the building can be divided into two parts: one part is shaped like an old horse mill, while the other resembles the crown of a lime tree, as the building’s side-supports branch off from the central column, and reach almost to the ground. Besides the reception building, which is essentially a wooden structure covered with planks, several smaller auxiliary buildings were constructed on the campsite, namely the sanitary blocks housing toilets and washing facilities, and other buildings housing cooking and dining areas, boilers, a pool, and storage rooms. The footprint of the sanitary blocks is the ancient symbol of an opposing double spiral, and as such is the first directly architectural realization of folk-art structural analysis. The building for cooking and dining was sited next to woods. Half of its roof is what one might call a proper roof, the other half is really just a covering made of woven reeds. The building is made from earth and wood, and consists of three sections: the two sections for cooking are covered with small roof shells, while the dining area is covered by the dome-shaped crown of the adjacent tree. The individual elements of this particular group of buildings appear as furnishings in this cathedral formed by the woods. A hostel building was originally planned as well, but instead of this, yurt-shaped tents were erected, from which the campsite, called Jurta Kemping, takes its name.

Hostelry

Visegrád, Mogyoró-hegy │ 1980–1982

Architect: Imre Makovecz

Co-architect: Erzsébet Várlaki

This establishment is situated in a clearing next to the woods. The thinking behind the design and choice of materials continues the approach the architects took with the neighbouring campsite buildings. In addition to the restaurant and the kitchen behind it, the hostelry also houses a refreshments counter, a welcome resource for skiers in the winter, and ramblers in the summer. The terrace was originally enclosed by tall, curving wooden walls, offering diners some protection against the elements; however, these walls were taken down during the 1990s.