From the latter half of the 19th century, the housing reform movement, aimed at improving the living conditions of lower social classes, fought for the construction of healthy and affordable housing in opposition to the market-driven construction of rental tenements in European cities. Rejecting market-based rental housing, which was held responsible for housing shortages, high housing costs, and overcrowding, the movement idealized detached family homes that provided ownership. By the late 19th century, this advocacy for such housing forms led to the development of the concept of the garden city. Alongside this idea of a garden city that broke with the historical structure of large cities, the movement at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries also considered improving urban living conditions by preserving the existing urban fabric. It found an opportunity in altering one element of the urban fabric: the way city blocks were built. The emergence of the ‘reformed block’, which preserved the existing urban fabric and street lines, became an international trend that began spreading more widely in European cities in the 1890s, after several decades of precedent.
During the reform processes leading up to World War I, the core of innovative building solutions aimed to avoid the closed courtyard structures that created airless, dark apartments facing the courtyard. Instead, this involved leaving the inner sections of blocks open and/or connecting them to the street. These reform approaches included creating shared green courtyards within blocks, piercing blocks with internal streets, and establishing new street facades instead of those facing narrow, closed courtyards. This period also saw the multiplication of staircases and the elimination or restricted use of suspended corridors (i.e., open walkways through which the apartments could be accessed). All these changes were part of international experimentation in reform thinking during the early 20th century. In Budapest, these developments occurred in parallel, with reform-oriented building methods appearing in the 1870s, followed by an intense construction period in the five years preceding the outbreak of World War I.
In Budapest, the housing reform movement also fostered experimentation beyond tenement housing construction. During this period, cooperative apartment buildings began to be built in the city, offering homeownership in multi-unit buildings rather than single-family houses. In the first cooperative apartment buildings, the housing reform principles emphasizing hygiene and comfort were reflected in a more homogeneous and higher-quality offer compared to rental apartments. The housing options in these cooperative buildings were not only apparent in architectural plans but also in pricing tables (or cost allocation plans) that outlined the distribution of cooperative shares and corresponding prices for each apartment. These pricing tables mirrored the contemporary housing categorization system, embedded in a broader transformation brought about by the building reform, even if this transformation did not initially draw widespread attention.
The changes did not initially affect the established system of apartment floor plans; the double-span layout, based on the duality of street and courtyard facades with interconnected rooms, remained intact. Instead, the transformation stemmed from a new approach to lot development. The criticism of narrow, closed courtyards lined with open walkways and the associated courtyard apartments led to building experiments focused on increasing the area of street-facing facades. While maintaining the double-span layout, reform-oriented modernization efforts aimed to rearrange the positioning of street- and courtyard-facing wings and transform the customary alignment of street and courtyard facades. Moving away from fully enclosing the lot allowed for rethinking courtyard design and found a solution in connecting courtyards between lots, thereby promoting conditions for healthier living through the freer flow of light and air. With the implementation of new courtyard solutions, such as adjoining courtyards and (a reduced and urbanized version of) cour d'honneurs, the positioning of courtyard wings shifted. Eliminating closed courtyards and open walkways going around the whole courtyard gave rise to new types of courtyard wings, featuring courtyard rooms and apartments of a higher quality. These opened onto facades without walkways or with access via short walkway sections, into more spacious internal courtyards without rear cross-wings enclosing them. Hungarian reformers also looked to the shared inner courtyard concept, emerging in German cities, as a model to emulate.
In addition to the shared inner courtyard, the adjoining courtyard concept took on other forms. Appearing along the lot edges as side courtyards, these courtyards adopted various shapes: some extended the full depth of the lot, evoking the feel of freestanding buildings, while others were closed off with a single-span rear section, reminiscent of the cour d’honneur design. The creation of adjoining courtyards often involved incorporating gardens. Whether in courtyards filling the inner block space or in adjoining courtyards limited to two lots – positioned along lot edges or in the interior of the lot, flanked by building wings but open toward each other across two lots –, the gardens reflected the ideals of the housing reform movement.
Expanding courtyards by connecting them inherently provided the ventilation and light required for hygienic living, in stark contrast to narrow, dark, and airless closed courtyards, which were considered breeding grounds for disease. Landscaping these areas not only amplified this effect but also added another layer of meaning.
The garden, as a symbol of fresh air, sunlight, and health, was a key element of the housing ideal promoted by the reform movement, namely, the single-family home with a garden. For decades, reformist thought viewed this as the path to healthy and comfortable living. However, as this ideal became unattainable in many cities, including Budapest, due to urban planning and economic factors, reformers experimenting with multi-family housing developments adopted the garden as part of their approach. In reform-designed courtyards for multi-family buildings, including cooperative apartments, the garden took on the role of evoking and embodying the family home ideal.
The courtyard design solutions aimed at increasing street-facing facades resulted in a new typology of facades and rooms thanks to landscaping. Alongside the traditional street–courtyard division, ‘garden facades’ and ‘garden rooms’ emerged in multi-family buildings, previously typical only of freestanding villas, as products of the reformist spirit in building experimentation. The classifications used in pricing tables illustrate the renewed appearance of apartments and rooms based on their designation as street or courtyard-facing. This new order, based on street, courtyard and garden classifications, reveals the value judgments of the first consumers of these building reform experiments through the prices assigned to these categories, thus providing their initial market ratings.
Thanks to the variety of adjoining courtyards, the early apartment buildings constructed at 64 Aréna Road (now 64 Dózsa György Road) between 1907 and 1908, and at 32 Ilka Street between 1909 and 1915 featured the most complex facade solutions. They included not only a gardened inner courtyard open to the neighboring lot but also a gardened adjoining side courtyard and a gardened adjoining rear courtyard. In the case of the Aréna Road building, the side courtyards connected to other side courtyards through narrow, undeveloped strips of land, whereas the Ilka Street building bordered several villa lots along multiple property lines. However, the cost allocation table for the Aréna Street building has not survived, so we can only observe the value attributes associated with the new types of facades and room arrangements created by the building reform in the case of the Ilka Street building.
The property at 32 Ilka Street bordered the villa building zone along the boundary line behind Stefánia Road, with one of the villa lots extending back to the middle of the lot at 32 Ilka Street. By applying the principle of adjoining courtyards in its design, the building featured an inner courtyard surrounded on three sides by wings with walkways, while the fourth side remained open toward the neighboring property at 34 Ilka Street. Along the other side and rear property boundaries, garden strips were left undeveloped in accordance with regulatory requirements, allowing them to connect to neighboring gardens. Thus, on the side opposite the inner courtyard that opened to the neighboring lot, an adjoining side courtyard was created, extending from the rear boundary of the lot to its midpoint, while another garden facade faced the rear property boundary adjacent to the villa gardens on Stefánia Roads. Thanks to the adjoining courtyard and adjoining side courtyards, every apartment had either a street-facing or garden-facing room, meaning a living space overlooking the landscaped courtyard or the rear garden that was free of walkways. Only rooms opened onto the garden facades along the property lines, while toilets were positioned on the front facing the inner courtyard, resulting in a layout that effectively created street-facing wings along the edges of the lot.
According to the pricing table, three factors played a role in the qualitative classification and pricing of apartments: floor height, number of rooms, and orientation. The most expensive level was the first floor, with prices decreasing as one moved upward. The top floor, the third, was the least valued, followed by the mezzanine level, while the second floor was the second most expensive. The building offered two-, three-, four-, and five-room apartments, including maid's rooms. In terms of room count, the most expensive apartment was the five-room unit, while the cheapest was the two-room unit: prices increased with the number of rooms. These two aspects – floor level and room count – determined that the most expensive apartment in the building was the five-room garden-facing apartment on the first floor, while the cheapest was the two-room garden-facing apartment on the third floor, with both units facing the rear property boundary.
The pricing table categorized the building according to street and garden facades and similarly classified the rooms into ‘street-facing’ and ‘garden-facing’ categories. The boundary line between the two distinct units was defined by the front part of the inner courtyard: apartments accessible from this area were classified as having a street facade, while those accessible from the back part of the inner courtyard were classified as having a garden facade. However, the categorization of the rooms followed a different rule. Only the rooms facing the Ilka Street facade were designated as street-facing, while all other rooms, regardless of their view, were defined as garden-facing. Thus, all rooms overlooking the laterally opened, gardened inner courtyard were considered garden-facing, as were those facing the narrow adjoining side and rear gardens, which also had views into the gardens of the neighboring properties.
The effect of the ‘street’ and ‘garden’ orientations on the prices was only perceivable with the same number of rooms and same floor levels, specifically among three- and four-room apartments. The four-room apartments either had two rooms facing the street and two facing the inner courtyard or were entirely garden-oriented, with rooms opening onto the inner courtyard and the rear garden facade. These two types were considered to have equal value, meaning that the apartments with rear garden facades were regarded as equivalent to the street-facing apartments. This classification carried two types of value judgments. On one hand, the rear property boundary allowed views over the neighboring gardens toward Stefánia Road, creating a connection that somewhat conferred a villa-like, yet street-oriented character to the rooms facing this way. On the other hand, the garden orientation did not elevate the value and quality of these apartments above that of the street-facing apartments: they were considered on par, and the garden did not undermine the quality judgment associated with the street-facing units. In fact, for three-room apartments, the street-facing units were decidedly valued more highly. While the three-room street-facing apartments had two rooms facing Ilka Street and one room facing the gardened inner courtyard – these were the middle units –, their garden counterparts had one room facing the inner courtyard and two rooms facing the adjoining side courtyard. However, according to the price table, they were not assigned the same quality as the apartments in the Ilka Street wing; instead, they were perceived as inferior. In the case of the house's most expensive five-room apartments, however, it was no longer possible to separate the valuation based on orientation and room count, as these apartments did not face Ilka Street but rather the rear and side property boundaries, meaning they were entirely garden-oriented.
The building reform, on the other hand, only utilized the creation of rear garden facades at other locations along the boundary between closed-row and villa development zones, without gardened side courtyards. However, the quality assessment of this facade was not uniform. In some cases, it was treated as equal to the street facades and was also referred to as street-facing, while in other cases, it remained of lower rank behind the actual street facade.
At the building located at 7 Tudor Street, constructed in 1911, the garden facade advantage came from the garden of the neighboring property, the Franciscan monastery on Margit Boulevard. A garden facade opened up to the unbuilt, landscaped strip left along the rear property line, while the traditional inner courtyard was enclosed by the four wings of the building, with the staircase filling the center of the courtyard. The symmetrical floor plan design featured four apartments per floor (two street-facing and two garden-facing), each accessible from the staircase located in the courtyard, without the use of a walkway. This solution not only eliminated courtyard apartments but also courtyard-facing rooms, effectively doubling the number of street-facing apartments by placing additional units in the garden wing.
The building offered three categories of apartments: street-facing units, courtyard-facing units overlooking the enclosed inner courtyard with the staircase, and garden-facing apartments that opened to the rear facade and looked onto the garden of the neighboring Franciscan monastery. In the category of three-room apartments, both the street-facing and garden-facing options included two rooms facing the street or garden, along with one room overlooking the inner courtyard. However, despite the garden apartments having views of the monastery's garden, which was unlikely to be developed, they were priced lower, reflecting a perceived lower quality. This distinction also appeared in the four-room apartments, which similarly included three street- or garden-facing rooms plus one courtyard room, consistently across all floors.
Instead of a rear garden facade, a proposed apartment building was planned for the corner plot at Ilka Street 24, at the corner of the later established Semsey Andor Street, with a side garden connected to an adjacent villa condominium. Although this building was never constructed, its design included a side garden façade alongside an open inner ‘garden courtyard’ facing the neighboring plot. According to the pricing table, there were two types in the categories of three- and four-room apartments: those facing only the street and those that included street-facing rooms alongside one garden-facing room. Notably, the facade overlooking the side garden was classified as street-facing rather than garden-facing, while the rooms that opened onto the side garden courtyard were designated as garden-facing rooms. The side façade facing Stefánia Road was perceived as a street façade just as much as the main façade on Ilka Street, and the apartments located in this wing were also considered street-facing. This was reflected in the house's advertisement, which emphasized that all apartments would be street-facing. Accordingly, for example, a three-room apartment with two rooms facing the side garden and one room facing the inner courtyard was counted as having two street-facing and one garden room. Thus, the pricing table's classification of two street-facing rooms plus one garden room could refer to those street-facing apartments that had two rooms facing the street and one facing the courtyard; it could also encompass those apartments with two rooms overlooking the side garden and one room facing the inner courtyard that opened toward the neighboring property. There was no price difference between them, similar to the situation with the apartments at 32 Ilka Street. Likewise, the category of four-room apartments with all four rooms facing the street could include both those with all their rooms facing the street and those with one street-facing room and three rooms overlooking the side garden, all without any price difference.
The first design variation for the residential building at 8 Tölgyfa Street in Víziváros, completed in early 1911, initially incorporated an undeveloped rear garden strip. However, with the modification of the plans, this element disappeared, and the side wings of the building extended all the way back to the wall of the neighboring property, enclosing a gardened but closed inner courtyard. This construction omitted the rear cross-wing, not to keep the courtyard open to the neighboring property – something that was no longer possible due to the fire wall standing there – but rather to increase the size of the courtyard nearly twofold. Thus, a closed courtyard was formed due to the building block's construction nature, yet in a landscaped form in accordance with the demands of the reformist perspective. The stairwell was placed outside on the courtyard facade, from which two walkways led in both directions in front of part of the facade. In the two side wings, the architect positioned one courtyard apartment in each, but these were no longer traditional courtyard apartments looking onto a closed courtyard with a circular walkway; instead, according to the commercial space allocation table, they were referred to as ‘garden-facing apartments’. Three-room apartments are suitable for comparison, as some of them looked onto the landscaped, partly walkway-accessible, closed inner courtyard as ‘garden-facing’ apartments, while others faced the street. However, alongside the two-room ‘garden-facing’ apartments located in the side wing without walkway access, there was no two-room street-facing apartment, which meant there was no opportunity to compare the prices of the purely ‘garden-facing’ and ‘walkway-less’ apartments. Among the apartments with three street-facing rooms and those with one street-facing room plus two garden-facing rooms, the latter ones were valued less on every floor.
In addition to developments directly connected to zones that were designated for detached housing, the reform solutions that utilized connecting side courtyards within the closed-row zoning also raise considerations regarding the evaluation associated with new types of street facades. The proposed but unbuilt apartment building at 14 Csáky Street illustrates a classification system for apartments within a house designed with a closed courtyard and a connecting side courtyard. This building was supposed to follow the development solution of 12 Csáky Street, considered its ‘twin’ and completed in 1905-1906, as a legally mandated obligation. Among the six apartments per floor in this house, one was a courtyard apartment with both rooms facing the closed inner courtyard; one apartment had three street-facing rooms plus a courtyard room also facing the inner courtyard; one apartment, situated at the corner of the street facade and the connecting side courtyard facade, had two rooms facing the street and two facing the side; and three apartments had all their rooms facing the connecting side courtyard. According to the pricing table, apartments facing the connecting courtyard were clearly designated as street-facing apartments, and only those apartments whose rooms exclusively faced the walkway-enclosed courtyard were classified as courtyard apartments – unsurprisingly, these were valued the least. However, within the street-facing category, there were price differences as well. The highest value was assigned to apartments located at the corner of the street facade and the connecting courtyard, with their value determined to be double that of courtyard apartments. Slightly lower in price was the group of four-room apartments that had three rooms facing the street facade and also included a room facing the enclosed courtyard. Conversely, the three-room apartments that faced the connecting side courtyard but were considered street-facing apartments were priced closer to courtyard apartments, with their prices estimated to be around two-thirds of those of the apartments facing the street.
Apartments facing the connecting side courtyards were similarly regarded as street-facing apartments in a proposed but unbuilt apartment building planned for the corner of Budafoki Road and Lágymányosi Street. According to the pricing table and the promotional description, the corner building would consist solely of street apartments, thanks to two ‘garden courtyards’ interrupting the block, which was equipped with three elevators and three main staircases. Although this description, along with the plan for the two garden courtyards, suggested the construction of three houses on the same lot, the pricing table accounted only for Buildings A and B. However, the number of courtyard rooms was so low (only one per floor) that regardless of whether a cour d’honneur or a connecting side courtyard was envisioned, the apartments facing them also had to be considered street-facing apartments.
The new types of facades created through reform developments aimed at improving apartment quality, expanded and reinterpreted the traditional dual classification of street- and courtyard-facing apartments in the context of closed row housing with enclosed courtyards. Without changing the basic layout and conceptual thinking, various types of connecting courtyards transformed the meanings of street and courtyard facades, and garden facades, previously associated with free-standing buildings, began to emerge. This development affected the classification of rooms and apartments based on their street and courtyard orientation and introduced a new category for garden-facing rooms. However, the evolving use of these classifications did not become uniform. The ‘street-facing’ designation could extend to apartments with garden facades, but they could also be labeled with the new ‘garden-facing’ designation. Rooms in inner courtyards, partly still only accessible by walkways, connected to neighboring lots could become ‘garden-facing’ rooms, but they could still be classified as ‘courtyard-facing’ rooms. Moreover, the ‘street-facing’ classification could now also apply to apartments facing the undeveloped strips of connecting side courtyards, alongside the rear garden facades.
Alongside their designation, the financial valuation of the apartments comprising the new type of offers was also fluid. The apartments with rear garden views and those facing the connecting side courtyards approached the status of street-facing apartments due to the variability of their designations, but this did not result in a uniform evaluation. The rear garden apartments overlooking villa plots were positioned within that price range, yet they could also be valued lower. However, they never surpassed those values; despite their garden orientation, they could not exceed the value associated with street facades. On the other hand, there emerged apartments referred to as ‘garden-facing’ due to the connecting courtyards, which partially replaced the traditional enclosed courtyards. These connecting courtyards, which were only partially equipped with a walkway but gardened and connected to the gardens of neighboring plots, made these apartments, and the rooms with such orientations, less valuable, and therefore cheaper than street apartments, even though they still exceeded the value typically associated with traditional courtyard apartments with enclosed courtyards and open walkways.
Ágnes Nagy (Translation from Hungarian: Barbara Szij)
(September 2024)
