L'architettura
magiara.
Ponte tra tradizione e modernità
nell'Europa centrale
by Andrea Nerozzi
1.Platea
2.Pianta
3.Palcoscenico
4.Prospetti e Sezione
5.Vista aerea dell'insieme
'Stephaneum' - Piliscsaba Campus - by Imre
Makovecz,
Unlike all other Central European Architectures,
the Magyar one still keeps alive the strongest of ties with its tradition.
It does so through the two currents that are at times united and opposing,
at times political and politicised, of the movement headed by György
Csete and Imre Makovecz. Still today from the works of the latter architect
one can experience an original and perverse architectural language that
conveys great emotions to all, despite all of the criticism it has endured.
This Magyar "organic" architectural current simply appears old
and rearranged, but it is based on clear national and religious elements.
It draws from the forms of Ödön Lechner's Uj Magyar Stilus and
from the early 20th century theoretical/practical research of Károly
Kòs.
Today, a century after the construction of Lechner's Takarèkpènztar,
manifesting the cultural "magyarisation", we note that the Peter
Pazmany Catholic University complex arises in the suburbs of Piliscsaba
town (thirty kilometres north of Budapest), thanks to the team of architects
led by Imre Makovecz. The campus, which was built inside a former Soviet
military barracks abandoned in the late eighties, has seen gradual structural
development as of 1995. The latest and, probably, most important building
realised is the "Stephaneum", by I. Makovecz. Planimetrically
speaking the building is spider-shaped, with a central corpus to which
is attached another outward-turned circular element: this being the head.
The first pair of legs closes off the front part as if defending what
lays behind. The second pair of legs extends into two bell-towers delimiting
a square which is sequenced by columns, erecting statues of national heroes
and crossed by a pedestrian path. Of interest is the oblique movement
evoked by the two cylindrical central bodies and their relative domes
that, through their cimborio, seemingly meet each other, in an age marked
by kataklizma kulturàlis.
6.Schizzo dell'autore
7.Pianta dell'insieme
8.Plastico dell'insieme
9.Prospetti
10.Porcelanium con la piccola piazza di fronte ad esso
11. Particolare del tetto e degli spigoli decorati
12.Fronte con in spigolo le aquile decorative
13.Dettaglio di facciata
'Herend Porcellane' by Gabor Turànyi,
While some aspects of the Hungarian organic movement
stem from the works of Kòs, as well as from the forms of the lost
yet beloved Transylvania, a considerable number of architects embody the
modernist spirit of the 20s and 30s. That rich and competitive environment
gave rise to the likes of Molnar Farkas, Moholy Nagy, Laszlo e Marcel
Breur, all protagonists of the Dessau Bauhaus, as well as others that
worked mainly nationally, like József Fischer, Gyula Wálder,
Bèla Rerrick e György Denes. This was the scene into which
Iván Kotsis (1889-1980) tip toed his way. Through his works and
teachings over 70 plus years, he managed in a sense to survive, WW II
and the gloomier "real socialism" period, unscathed, and transmit
in the years that followed the teachings of modern Hungarian architecture.
This is the branch of architecture that gave birth to interesting figures
such as Tamàs Nagy and Gabor Turànyi.
A race to secure private tenders for state-owned properties began in 1989
giving way to the restructuring phase of the productive system. This led
to the renovation of the system's most important seats.
1989 is thus considered the launch for many professionals that before
belonged to state cooperatives.
Gàbor Turànyi won a competition to which he was invited
in Herend, for a project to restructure the cultural and commercial offices
of "Herend Porcelains", the most famous Hungarian porcelain
factory. The complex arises on a level slightly higher than the street
and in proximity of the village, to which the building is connected by
a square surrounded on three sides by the building colonnade.
One of the of the Budapestian architecht's firmest intentions was to recover
the symbolic building of the factory: the ancient furnace in which, by
adapting the interiors, he created the "National Porcelain Museum".
Moving westwards under the arcades, one reaches the hub of the building,
where a bar and restaurant are located on the ground floor to receive
visitors. The first floor is dedicated to office space. On the remaining
part of the building the architect has emphatised a space featuring large
volumes. The centre of Herend and the "National Seat for Forestry
Information" in Pilis Park, are perhaps the works that have turned
out the best since the turning-point of the 90s: Turànyi's facades
are characterised by coupling brick and wood with dry-stone curtain walls.
There are also some decorative elements, like the two pairs of eagles,
positioned at the corners of the foreparts that delimit the square, giving
the complex a higher qualititative level.
14.Pianta e Prospetto
15.Struttura della cupola vista
dal basso
16.Vista della chiesa dal fronte
sud
Chiesa Evangelica di Balatonboglàr by Tamàs Nagy
In Balatonboglàr, where Tamàs Nagy realised the Evangelic Church, he re-proposed the enclosure-wall theme to represent a place of aggregation and prayer. In Nagy's work we note a particular taste for masonry masses, how he uses volumes and exhibits large stone-curtain walls, which feature rhythmical and well-calibrated alternation among full and empty spaces. Nevertheless, the use of rounded volumes is similar to that chosen by the architect for the Dunaùjvàros church, where cylinders and cusps amalmagate with the whole. The church hall and the presbytery are located inside an elliptic-shaped concrete construction, upon which sits a basket-handle dome in lamellar wood. The bell tower is tangent to and on the same axis as the main corpus and serves as the pronaos. In the spaces resulting from the intersection between the enclosure-wall and the church itself, the architect placed a chapel and the sacristy. Moreover, the planimetry clearly shows the characteristic mark of Nagy, who has built four churches since 1992, similarly to Baumbarn Lipot, who mostly built places of worship around the end of the 19th century.
