Affordable housing for the majority of the lower classes and what was then known as the rent usury, provoked strong reactions from the public at the end of the first decade of the 1900s. This was a period of housing riots, rent strikes, squatting and, in extreme cases, house demolitions in Budapest, which finally spurred the idea of care and the increasingly active municipal economic and social policy of the municipal authorities to action.
These housing movements provided the impetus for a public housing programme on a scale that was completely unprecedented for the period, with the government contributing to the construction of 3,657 flats at the Wekerle estate, in addition to the investment of the municipality of Budapest that resulted in almost 6,000 flats.
The construction campaign
Preparations for the works began in 1907. At that time, the city's Engineering Department envisaged the creation of a housing estate of detached houses in accordance with the English suburban ideal, which was later replaced by the construction of tenement houses with one, two and three-room flats and the idea of small flat housing estates. For suburban-style development in Budapest, city-owned plots of land that could be connected to the public utility network at a realistic cost were considered too valuable to be affordable for the target group.
In March 1909, Mayor István Bárczy submitted a proposal to improve housing conditions in the capital as part of a large-scale, 297 million crown investment plan for modern urban development, presenting preliminary plans for a 5-year construction campaign starting in 1909. The programme, which was connected to the already established school building campaign, was originally proposed at a cost of 95 million crowns, but the plans presented at the time were eventually implemented at a much reduced level.
Small flat residential buildings were built according to two basic types. On the one hand, on the more central, well-developed urban plots, three- and four-storey tenement houses were built with 1-2-3-4 room apartments, with a hall or anteroom, kitchen, pantry and toilet. The three- or four-room apartments also had a maid's room and bathroom for the higher ranking officials of the capital.
The small flat housing estates were located on plots of land further from the center, where complexes of one- or two-storey houses were built. In this case, much lower-investment house types were created by using cheaper plots of land with good transport links, so that the authorities could provide housing for the most needy, while keeping the principle of return on investment in mind. These cheaper housing estates were built on land owned by the municipality which the planners thought could be easily released after a few decades, when it would be more valuable for urban development. This explains why some of the houses were designed in a portable, barrack-like format made of wood or stone.
Such transportable buildings were then produced not only by British (Humphreys) and German (Döcker) companies, but also by some domestic (Danubius, Walla, Árkay, Popper, Válaszfal építő rt. etc.) enterprises. The capital itself has had similar experiences with some barrack hospitals and barrack schools. The construction costs of portable houses were somewhat higher than those of permanent buildings, so this type of construction solution was therefore only used in the first cycle of the operation.
In the later phases of the programme, more solidly built housing was erected at the estates, most of which, despite being designed for a maximum of 30 years, was still in use in the 1970s, with the Ciprus Street estate operating until 1995.
The estates consisted exclusively of low-rent flats with living room kitchen layouts, and the associated toilets were clustered at the end of the building (one for every two flats).
Designing the campaign, managing the construction
The design of the housing project was developed by the staff of the Presidential Department under the leadership of engineer Gyula Kabdebó. The plans, most of which were drawn up by private architects, were put out to competitions, some of them invitation-only and some of them open. Each call was for one construction phase. Once the plans had been evaluated, construction work began under the supervision of the Engineering Office. The capital only had its housing estates designed by the Engineering Office, while private architects were hired for the apartment blocks. One reason for this was that the Engineering Office was unable to handle the increased tasks itself, and another was that the Bárczy government wanted to create a housing programme worthy of the capital, something of which the capital could be proud decades later, and this required sophisticated design work.
When the works were contracted out, the capital's aim was to give as much of the work as possible to small companies, so the works were contracted out in stages. However, an examination of the construction process clearly showed that the contracts were awarded to a number of already known, reliable applicants, often closely linked to the city hall, and that the tendering process itself was not even opened in many cases because of the urgency of the work.
In the first round, the first two sites on Váci Road and Aréna Road were put out to tender for the construction of portable houses, followed by the Tattersall, Gyáli Road (the latter for the workers of the Fuvartelep) and Mihálkovics Street estates.
In the second phase of the campaign, the construction of more than 1,000 small flats in ground-floor barracks was announced. In addition to the emergency housing estate, the Telepy Street complex was built as a continuation of the Mihálkovics Street estate, the Budafoki, Bécsi, Százados, Kőbányai and Pozsonyi Road estates on the Újpest quay were built, and an Artists’ Colony with 28 studios (and one-, two- or three room apartments) in Százados Street was also finished.
In the third cycle of the Small Flats Programme, three larger blocks of multi-storey houses were built on Ciprus Street, Gubacsi, Ceglédi and Palotai Roads, and some additional construction work was also carried out: in addition to the workshop tenement house in Haller and Szörény Streets, another similar building was finished in Villám Street.
Laura Umbrai (Translation from Hungarian: Barbara Szij)
(November 2024)