Témák

“It would be desirable for us to make the general public partial to the row house with as wide-ranging publicity as possible [...].” (Münnich, Aladár: A sorházakról [On Row Houses]. A Magyar Mérnök- és Építész-Egylet Közlönye, 1933, 17-18, 107.)

The row house was essentially non-existent as a possible choice amongst the housing types in Budapest until the end of the 1920s. The first group of row houses were built in 1926-1927 on the Buda side (12th district, 56–80 Kiss János altábornagy Street), and the OTI housing estate built in 1929 also contained row houses. After this, a few row house developments were erected in the 1930s and the beginning of the 1940s, mostly on the Buda side, but this construction can only be described as sporadic. In the majority of the cases, these were multiplex homes, or in other words groups of three or four residences attached to one another in a closed row. They were erected in areas with a pattern of detached home development and were scattered so did not comprise a housing estate. The form of construction that would have created groups of row houses based on uniform plans and unified organization (creating a housing estate or integrated into an estate including various residential types) did not develop in Budapest.

The exterior of the distinctively triangular city block formed by the intersection of Villányi and Bartók Béla roads at Móricz Zsigmond Circle does not stand out from the multitude of commonplace examples of the attached development pattern in Budapest. However, it is special when seen from the inside. It was formed as a result of a unique meeting point of two types of development methods, specifically as a peculiar combination of enclosed courtyard development operating at the scale of each lot and connected courtyard development encompassing multiple lots. This latter pattern was projected upon certain sections of the block during two separate periods when experimentation with development reform for urban blocks was trending.

The triangular block behind present-day 12 Kosztolányi Dezső Square (Lenke Square at that time) became the subject of real estate development activity in the hands of the Fischer and Detoma construction company in 1907. This project was a part of the increasing development of the Lágymányos district after 1905. In Budapest’s property and housing construction markets defined in terms of individual lots, it proved to be out of the ordinary because the project was completed according to a unified concept. Although its development was implemented by lots in accordance with the building regulations, the buildings were still integrated into a unified architectural plan formulated by József Fischer that extended over the entire block. The fulfillment of his concept was ensured by a single owner controlling the properties, resulting in uniform architectural design. The outcome was an ensemble of hygienic residential buildings that followed the most recent international housing reform principles, and it was completed by 1912, so in under five years.

The transformation of apartment houses into condominiums began to spread as a new business practice in Budapest in the first half of the 1920s. Although there were precedents to this phenomenon before and during the First World War, the practice appeared with such frequency in the years following the war that the press took notice and even gave it a special name, subdivision of buildings. In essence it was the sale of existing apartment houses by individual apartments, transforming the buildings into condominiums. This new phenomenon fit in with the slowly emerging trend of reorganizing ownership relationships that became a key factor in housing in the capital.

Condominiums in the form of associations appeared in Budapest and began to spread in the first decades of the 20th century. This new type of housing was set on its path by a public employee interest group, the Országos Tisztviselő Szövetség (National Association of Officials), in 1907, and the first condominiums were created as cooperative building associations in the wake of this between 1907 and 1914. The defining framework for the spread of condominium formation was cooperative association by public employees, but business enterprises appeared alongside this almost immediately. Already in 1909-1910, banks and corporations involved in building construction joined in the erection of condominiums, but the majority that were built before the First World War were the result of cooperative associations. This new form of ownership was called a condominium association, a building construction association, a condominium joint-ownership association, or simply a condominium.

“This morning we went and looked over the apartment carefully one more time. It is in terrible condition. However, I am particularly happy about this, because due to this they will re-plaster it, while Palatinus usually only repaints otherwise. […] However, we have to have it sprayed and they are not providing a stove for the bathroom.” “It is not possible to bargain with them for anything, they only do what they see fit. E.g. the sink is in terrible condition like everything, but they will not provide another one to replace it because it does not have any holes and so it is usable. They will paint the apartment, repair the doors and windows, spackle cracks, and install stoves where there are not any. The rooms are not really big, but they do have good walls.”

(BFL XIII.33 Letter of Magda Balogh to Géza Balthazár, 24 October 1939)

“Along with a single, large common room, we should instead strive for many separate small bedrooms or dens at the same time, so that everybody, not just the adults, but also the male and female children should be given the opportunity for separation. This is because the most basic requirement of life is a properly functioning family organism. The feeling of individuality is what every family member can bring into their own room and its furnishings.”

(Barátosi-Szabó, Ferenc: Családiház és kislakásproblémák [The Problems of Family Homes and Small Apartments]. A Magyar Mérnök és Építész-Egylet Közlönye, 1933, 17–18, 102.)

The thought and actions aimed at reforming housing in large cities took a new direction after the First World War. While up until that point the housing reform movement was primarily a matter for experts in social politics and doctors, starting in the 1920s it became primarily a matter for architects. The idea of housing reform in the period between the two world wars no longer meant the socio-political creation of an institutional system for housing matters, but the architectural practice of experimentation with floorplans.

At the end of the 1920s, the Hungarian advocates of modern architecture saw the possibilities to reform the multi-dwelling building and apartment types through the practice of building around the edge of the city block, or in other words the method of perimeter development, differentiated from building around the edge of the lot. However, after only a few years had passed, these same architects did not consider perimeter development proper. Articles piled up in the professional journals on architecture around 1932-1933 that judged perimeter development to be outdated and urged a switch over to row development. Starting from this point, row versus perimeter development became one of the constant topics in architectural writings for more than a decade, while the official regulations did not or were very slow to follow the demands of the architects that were reworked over and over.

“The few steps separating the stove and the kitchen cupboard from one another may seem like nothing, but actually mean several thousand kilograms of extra work annually for an already overburdened mother and homemaker in today’s concept of human energy savings.”

(“Konyha-problémák” [Kitchen Problems], Magyar Iparművészet, 1928, 46.)

“Today, everything is travelling on the path to rationalization. Work, play, sports, and politics are all following this evolution, so housing must also be connected sooner or later to this spirit of the times. […] Everything is being rationalized, so the rationalization of private life is unavoidable because this is the only way for families to maintain or improve their standard of living."

(Wossala, Sándor: A modern városrendezés és építkezés a berlini építési kiállítás világításában [Modern Urban Planning and Construction at the Berlin World Construction Exposition]. Városi Szemle, 1931, 5, 779.)